Session Name: Foodscaping Asia I: Scaping the Remote
4 - Cabbage in Flight: Conserving Native Seeds in Monocultural Foodscapes in South Korea
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
11:15 – 13:00 (GMT+7)
Presentation Abstract Over recent years, there has been a growing interest in “tojong” (native/heirloom/landrace) seeds and products in South Korea, especially among urban consumers, co-ops, and small-scale farmers seeking alternative approaches to food and agriculture. One iconic crop is kimchi’s main ingredient, Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis), particularly because it captured and sparked popular imaginations and curiosities about the ‘authentic’ version of the famous national cuisine. A variety called “Gueok cabbage,” named after its place of origin in Jeju Island, is the most popular among more than ten varieties available as seeds to the general public. In this presentation, I follow the seed’s itinerary from 2008 to the present—from the seed’s incorporation into the national genetic resources collection, its adoption by urban gardeners and back-to-the-land farmers pursuing self-subsistence, to its entrance into conglomerate franchise restaurants and luxurious department stores as a premium food ingredient. This sporadic existence of the cabbage creates heterotopic microscapes within the monocultural foodscapes through the crop’s rarity and atypical culinary qualities. By connecting dots where the cabbages are produced, distributed, and consumed, such as an art collective’s rooftop garden in Dongdaemun area, an exuberant farmers’ market in Seoul, and the “Reunification Garden” tended by women farmers in Chungbuk, I trace how these marginal foodscapes have weaved together tightropes on which the near-extinct seed is sliding toward its next refugees and disseminating alternative appetites on the way.
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