Ewha Womans University Press is pleased to publish a revised and expanded deluxe hardcover edition of A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes. Its first edition has long been one of the best and most representative of all Korean cookbooks, and has continually been enjoyed by all the generations of Koreans since its original publication in 1997. This new edition selectively chooses 126 authentic Korean recipes and introduces them with step-by-step instructions along with full-color pictures.
This completely revised edition is organized into nine basic categories: rice and porridge, soup and stew, seasoned vegetable dishes, food cooked in sauces, broiled food, kimchi, pickled food, popular dishes and desserts. The book also contains two types of recipes: authentic recipes such as kimchi or vegetables mixed with rice (bibim bap) for the traditionalists, and quick and easy recipes such as rice with trumpet royal mushrooms (saesong-i beoseot bap) for those who are in a hurry yet still want a home-cooked meal. There are also detailed explanations of special holidays and occasions, like Korean Thanksgiving Day and birthdays, along with suggested menus for the settings. Finally, the revised edition also contains a simple and organized explanation of the commonly used ingredients.
Chang Sun-young always explains her recipes step by step as if she is standing next to you, and always gives the specific measures of the ingredients in cups and spoons so that no matter who makes the dish, it will result in the same taste as the dish that she herself makes. Even novice cooks can prepare authentic Korean food, which has five thousand years of tradition, and have it taste just like mom used to make.
She is not originally trained as a professional chef; rather, she is a housewife who loves her family very much. This book originated as a collection of notes and recipes to help her two daughters-in-law who lived away from her. She shares her years of experience and wisdom, ranging from how to clean the ingredients to how to preserve the foods to how to efficiently prepare the foods.
A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes provides invaluable guidance to Korean home cooking and includes the secrets and wisdom from 40 years of experience of a devoted Korean housewife. This deluxe edition is a labor of love from the entire family. The older daughter-in-law helped with the preparation and presentation of the dishes for the pictures, and the younger daughter-in-law translated the book.
Even in the United States, this book is consistently requested among 2nd and 3rd generation Korean Americans. We hope that this book will be a guide to the Korean culinary arts for those who are genuinely interested in Korean culture and cooking. This new deluxe edition, completely revised and updated, and now in hardcover, will be a treasured gift and constant resource for everyone who loves Korean cooking.
Chang, Sun-Young graduated from Ewha Womans University and worked at her alma mater for ten years until her family moved to the United States. She and her husband subsequently lived in Indonesia and the Philippines before returning to Korea.
During her prolonged residence abroad away from her sons for their study, cooking became her favorite pastime. When she came back to Korea, she took professional lessons from the late Kang, In-hee, a master of Korean authentic cooking.
Chang wrote recipes of family favorites for her two daughters-in-law and amassed enough to produce a cook book. A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes appeared in bookstores and became a runaway best seller. Its English translation also became a steady seller. She had her own cooking show on cable TV, wrote a weekly column for a leading daily newspaper and published another cookbook Love Comes From the Dinner Table.
She currently lives in Fremont, California where she continues to share and promote Korean culinary arts and culture. She continues to give cooking lessons and writes a weekly cooking column for the San Francisco edition of the JoongAang Daily newspaper.
