I was asked if there was any food from my country that I dislike, but my husband likes, and if there any Korean food that I like but he dislikes.

First up, let’s talk about Korean food. The answer is:

EVERYTHING! I’m much more picky about Korean food. I eat most of it but there are still things I won’t eat, like intestines, and I can be picky about how I eat things with bones. His mother makes amazing fried chicken but she knows I don’t like eating chicken right off the bones, so she’ll make sure I get all the boneless or near boneless bits. It’s really sweet, she puts all the good pieces directly on my plate.

So what about Australian/Western food? What does he like that I dislike? The major thing I can think of is steak.

I’m not a big meat eater (and slip in and out of vegetarianism) and prefer my portion of meat to be small with lots of vegetables. What I love about Korean food is the smaller and thinner meat portions and the way it’s integrated into the food, instead of just a slab of meat as in a lot of Australian cooking.

However, because Koreans in general are used to smaller portions of meat in Korea, they can get quite excited about the large and cheap cuts of meat in Australia. Australia has a big meat industry and has the space to pasture feed livestock. So my husband really enjoys a big steak but I cannot eat that much meat at once. And it’s pretty boring to me.

I have been disappointed a few times before, when invited to dinner by other Koreans who are living in Australia because I’ve expected to eat Korean food. Instead dinner will be just big chunks of meat barbequed or fried. While they think it’s great to be able to eat this much meat at once, for me, because I’ve grown up with Australian barbeques and an excess of meat, it’s not that great. I’d much prefer to be eating a variety of Korean dishes and have the meat much more marinated or seasoned and with vegetables. But I understand why they focus on the meat when in Australia.

In order to answer this question I was going through some of my favourite Korean foods/drinks to see if my husband dislikes any of them.

Me: “Banana Milk!”

Him: “Everyone likes that!”

Me: “The potato pancake your mother makes?”

Him: “Everyone likes that!”

And it went on…. I just like the popular food and he likes everything anyway.