The Gogi-gui Table

Gogi-gui (고기구이), meat grilled at the table, rests on a long Korean habit of cooking meat over fire, of which the Goguryeo-era maekjeok, skewered and seasoned meat, is the usual ancestor named by food historians. The Joseon court and the households of the yangban knew seoryamyeongchi and neobiani, the latter a slice of beef seasoned and grilled, and the modern table of bulgogi and galbi descends from these preparations. The table-top grill, with the diners cooking for themselves, belongs to the twentieth century and to the restaurant rather than to the old household, and it spread widely in Seoul after the war of 1950 to 1953 and in the Korean communities abroad.

The gogi-gui table is built around a fire at its centre. A grill of charcoal, or later gas, is set into the table or placed upon it, and the meat is brought raw: beef galbi (short rib) on the bone, marinated in soy, sugar, pear, garlic and sesame oil; bulgogi, thinly sliced; unmarinated saeng-galbi and chadol-baegi, the brisket sliced paper-thin; and pork, in the form of samgyeopsal, belly cut thick and cooked without seasoning, and moksal, the neck. The distinction between marinated and plain meat decides the manner of cooking: sugar-bearing marinades burn quickly and ask for a moderate heat, while plain pork belly is cooked slowly until the fat renders and the skin of each slice is browned and crisp. The diner or the person nearest the grill cooks, turns and cuts the meat, often with scissors and tongs, and the eldest at the table is served first, in keeping with the order of the Korean meal generally. The meat is then eaten in a wrapped mouthful, ssam. A leaf of lettuce or perilla (Perilla frutescens) takes a piece of meat, a little rice, a slice of raw garlic, a spoonful of ssamjang, the paste of doenjang and gochujang, and sometimes a pickle, and the whole is eaten in one bite. The mouthful is composed to balance fat against bitterness, salt and sharpness, and it is the reason the banchan at a grill house are mostly cold, sour and fresh: pa-muchim, the dressed spring onion, kimchi, pickled radish, and raw vegetables. The end of the meal follows its own order. The grill is cleared or the plate changed, and the table finishes with something to settle the meat: naengmyeon, the cold buckwheat noodles, or a doenjang-jjigae with rice, and sometimes a fried rice made on the remaining grill with kimchi and the fat. Soju and beer are the usual drinks, and the rules of pouring for elders and of turning the head to drink apply at the grill as at any drinking table. David Chang, in Momofuku, treats the Korean grill house as one of the sources of the cooking he describes, and his pork belly, served with its accompaniments for wrapping, shows the form of ssam carried into a restaurant outside Korea. The example makes the point that the structure of the gogi-gui table, the fatty meat, the leaf, the paste and the sharp pickle, can be separated from its setting and still hold together.

The gogi-gui table works by contrast: the sweetness and savour of marinated beef, or the plain richness of pork belly, against the bitterness of the leaf, the sharpness of raw garlic, the saltiness of ssamjang and the acidity of kimchi and pickled radish. Sesame oil with salt and pepper is the usual dip for plain beef, and the cold noodles at the end of the meal cleanse the palate after the fat.