B2 · Upper Intermediate
11 min
food cultureimmigrationdiasporakorean cuisinecultural identity
The Supermarket and Memory: How Food Survives Exile
El supermercado y la memoria: Cómo la comida sobrevive al exilio
This week, a shooting at a Korean supermarket in Carrollton, Texas, opens a deeper conversation: why immigrant community grocery stores are so much more than places to shop. Fletcher and Octavio explore Korean food, diaspora, and how a cuisine can travel to the other side of the world without losing its soul.
Esta semana, un tiroteo en un supermercado coreano en Carrollton, Texas, nos lleva a explorar algo más profundo: por qué los supermercados de las comunidades inmigrantes son mucho más que tiendas. Fletcher y Octavio hablan de la comida coreana, la diáspora, y cómo una cocina puede viajar al otro lado del mundo sin perder su alma.
7 essential B2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| arraigo | rootedness, deep attachment to a place or culture | La comunidad coreana en Texas tiene un arraigo muy fuerte, construido durante décadas a través de la comida, la lengua y las tradiciones. |
| arraigar | to take root, to become deeply established | La comida coreana ha arraigado en muchas ciudades europeas gracias a la influencia cultural del K-pop y las series de televisión. |
| añoranza | longing, nostalgia for something lost or left behind | Muchos inmigrantes sienten añoranza de los sabores de su infancia, algo que ningún restaurante puede replicar del todo. |
| morriña | deep homesickness, particularly associated with Galicia; a physical longing for one's homeland | Los emigrantes gallegos llevaron la palabra 'morriña' a toda Latinoamérica para describir ese dolor casi físico por el lugar de origen. |
| diáspora | diaspora; the dispersal of a people from their original homeland | La diáspora coreana en Estados Unidos construyó toda una infraestructura cultural alrededor de la comida para preservar su identidad. |
| fermentación | fermentation | La fermentación es el proceso central de la cocina coreana; el kimchi, por ejemplo, puede fermentarse durante meses o incluso años. |
| dejar huella | to leave a mark, to have a lasting impact | La ocupación japonesa dejó huella en muchos aspectos de la vida coreana, pero la cocina tradicional resistió casi intacta. |
There was a shooting this week at a Korean supermarket in Carrollton, Texas.
Two people killed, three injured, a 69-year-old man opened fire on his coworkers.
And I keep thinking about the location.
Not the crime itself, but the place.
Sí, es una tragedia.
Yes, it's a tragedy.
Y entiendo por qué el lugar te llama la atención.
And I understand why the location catches your attention.
Un supermercado coreano en Texas no es solo un sitio donde comprar comida.
A Korean supermarket in Texas isn't just a place to buy food.
Es el centro de una comunidad entera.
It's the center of an entire community.
Carrollton is fascinating on its own.
It's in the Dallas metro area, and it has one of the largest concentrations of Korean-Americans in the whole state of Texas.
The neighborhood around there, people call it "K-Town Dallas." There are Korean BBQ restaurants, Korean bakeries, Korean karaoke bars.
It's a world.
Y en el centro de todo eso, casi siempre hay un supermercado.
And at the center of all that, almost always, there's a supermarket.
Es el primer lugar que busca una comunidad inmigrante.
It's the first thing an immigrant community looks for.
Antes de la iglesia, antes del restaurante, antes de cualquier otra cosa: el supermercado.
Before the church, before the restaurant, before anything else: the supermarket.
Why the supermarket first?
That's the thing I want to understand.
Porque la comida es la memoria más directa que existe.
Because food is the most direct form of memory there is.
Puedes olvidar una lengua con el tiempo.
You can forget a language over time.
Puedes adoptar otras costumbres.
You can adopt other customs.
Pero el sabor de lo que comías en casa...
But the taste of what you ate at home...
eso no se olvida nunca.
that you never forget.
Es casi físico.
It's almost physical.
The Koreans started arriving in Texas in serious numbers in the 1970s and 80s.
A lot of them came after the Immigration Act of 1965, which opened the door to Asian immigration in a way that had been basically shut for decades.
And the food infrastructure followed.
Es un patrón que se repite en todas las diásporas.
It's a pattern that repeats across every diaspora.
Los españoles que emigraron a América Latina en el siglo veinte llevaron sus recetas consigo.
The Spaniards who emigrated to Latin America in the twentieth century took their recipes with them.
Los marroquíes en Francia construyeron toda una red de carnicerías halal y especierías.
Moroccans in France built an entire network of halal butchers and spice shops.
La comida llega antes que la integración.
Food arrives before integration does.
And in the Korean case specifically, the supermarket becomes something extraordinary.
I've been to H Mart.
If you haven't been to one, it's a Korean-American grocery chain, and walking in there is genuinely disorienting in the best way.
The scale of it, the variety.
H Mart es un fenómeno.
H Mart is a phenomenon.
Empezó en Nueva York en los años ochenta, en Queens, que siempre ha sido uno de los barrios más diversos del mundo.
It started in New York in the eighties, in Queens, which has always been one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the world.
Ahora tiene tiendas en más de treinta estados.
Now it has stores in more than thirty states.
Pero lo que me parece fascinante es que no vende solo comida coreana: vende comida de toda Asia.
But what I find fascinating is that it doesn't just sell Korean food: it sells food from all across Asia.
It became a hub for multiple communities at once.
Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino.
They all found something there.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y hay un libro famoso sobre esto, de la escritora Michelle Zauner, que se llama 'Llorando en el H Mart'.
And there's a famous book about this, by the writer Michelle Zauner, called 'Crying in H Mart'.
Habla de cómo este supermercado estaba ligado a su relación con su madre coreana, con su identidad, con el duelo.
She talks about how this supermarket was tied to her relationship with her Korean mother, with her identity, with grief.
Es una obra preciosa.
It's a beautiful piece of work.
I read that book.
It wrecked me.
And what she captures so precisely is this idea that cooking your mother's food is a way of keeping her alive.
Not metaphorically.
She means it almost literally.
Eso conecta con algo muy profundo de la cocina coreana: la idea del 'son mat', que se podría traducir como 'el sabor de las manos'.
That connects to something very deep in Korean cooking: the idea of 'son mat', which you could translate as 'the flavor of hands'.
Cada persona que cocina deja algo de sí misma en la comida.
Every person who cooks leaves something of themselves in the food.
No se puede replicar exactamente.
You can't replicate it exactly.
Cambia con quien la prepara.
It changes with whoever prepares it.
Son mat.
That's a concept I hadn't heard before.
The flavor of hands.
That's genuinely beautiful and a little heartbreaking at the same time.
En español tenemos algo parecido cuando decimos que una receta 'lleva el sello de alguien', o que la comida 'sabe a hogar'.
In Spanish we have something similar when we say a recipe 'bears someone's stamp', or that food 'tastes like home'.
Pero el coreano lo convierte en algo más concreto, más físico.
But Korean makes it more concrete, more physical.
Es la huella dactilar de quien cocina.
It's the fingerprint of whoever cooks.
Now, Korean food has done something remarkable in the last fifteen years globally.
It's gone from being relatively niche outside the diaspora to being absolutely everywhere.
And I want to ask you about that, because you've watched it happen from Spain.
En Madrid, hace diez años, había dos o tres restaurantes coreanos, todos en el barrio de Usera.
In Madrid, ten years ago, there were two or three Korean restaurants, all in the Usera neighborhood.
Ahora hay decenas por toda la ciudad.
Now there are dozens all over the city.
El barrio de Lavapiés tiene varios, y no solo van los coreanos: van los madrileños, los turistas, todo el mundo.
The Lavapiés neighborhood has several, and it's not just Koreans going: it's madrileños, tourists, everyone.
What changed?
Because this isn't just a Madrid thing.
It happened in London, Sydney, São Paulo.
There's a synchronized global moment here.
Hay tres factores.
There are three factors.
El primero es el 'hallyu', la ola cultural coreana: el K-pop, las series de televisión como 'Squid Game' o 'Parasite'.
The first is the 'hallyu', the Korean cultural wave: K-pop, television series like 'Squid Game' or 'Parasite'.
Cuando una cultura se vuelve cool globalmente, su comida viaja con ella.
When a culture becomes globally cool, its food travels with it.
Siempre ha sido así.
It's always been that way.
Soft power on a plate.
Italy figured this out decades ago.
France has been running that game for centuries.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
El segundo factor es que la comida coreana tiene algo que los nutricionistas y los cocineros llevan años buscando: fermentación.
The second factor is that Korean food has something nutritionists and chefs have been looking for for years: fermentation.
El kimchi, el doenjang, el gochujang.
Kimchi, doenjang, gochujang.
Todo el mundo habla ahora de los fermentados y los probióticos.
Everyone's talking about fermented foods and probiotics now.
Corea los lleva haciendo dos mil años.
Korea has been making them for two thousand years.
The fermentation thing is real.
I had a colleague in Seoul in the late nineties who tried to explain kimchi to me, and I was completely skeptical.
Fermented cabbage with chili?
And then I ate it and understood immediately why it had survived for millennia.
El kimchi es interesante porque también sobrevivió a circunstancias históricas muy duras.
Kimchi is interesting because it also survived very harsh historical circumstances.
Corea estuvo bajo ocupación japonesa durante la primera mitad del siglo veinte, y parte de la identidad nacional se preservó precisamente a través de la cocina.
Korea was under Japanese occupation during the first half of the twentieth century, and part of the national identity was preserved precisely through cooking.
Comer kimchi era un acto cultural.
Eating kimchi was a cultural act.
That pattern shows up constantly in colonial history.
The colonized preserving identity through the table when they couldn't preserve it in any other way.
You see it in Ireland, in Algeria, in Mexico.
Y mencionas México, que es un buen ejemplo.
And you mention Mexico, which is a good example.
La cocina mexicana sobrevivió la conquista española, absorbió ingredientes europeos, y se convirtió en algo nuevo que sigue siendo profundamente indígena en su base.
Mexican cuisine survived the Spanish conquest, absorbed European ingredients, and became something new that remains deeply indigenous at its base.
La tortilla es anterior a Cortés por miles de años.
The tortilla predates Cortés by thousands of years.
What's the third factor?
You said there were three.
El tercero es el umami.
The third is umami.
La comida coreana tiene una intensidad de sabor que es adictiva.
Korean food has a flavor intensity that's addictive.
El gochujang, que es una pasta de chile fermentado, tiene una profundidad que te cuesta mucho encontrar en otras cocinas.
Gochujang, which is a fermented chili paste, has a depth that's hard to find in other cuisines.
Una vez que lo pruebas, lo buscas.
Once you try it, you go looking for it.
Umami is the word the Japanese gave to that fifth flavor, the savory depth that isn't sweet, sour, salty, or bitter.
And Korean cuisine is built on it.
The fermented soybean pastes, the fish sauces, the aged kimchi.
Every layer adds more of it.
Y hay algo más: la cocina coreana es muy social.
And there's something more: Korean cuisine is very social.
El bulgogi, la barbacoa coreana, se cocina en la mesa, delante de todos.
Bulgogi, Korean barbecue, is cooked at the table, in front of everyone.
No es una comida que traes ya hecha.
It's not a meal you bring out already done.
Es una experiencia compartida.
It's a shared experience.
Eso también explica su éxito en los restaurantes.
That also explains its success in restaurants.
The theater of it.
You're not just eating, you're cooking together.
The Korean BBQ restaurant is essentially a performance that everyone in the group participates in.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y eso me lleva de vuelta al supermercado.
And that brings me back to the supermarket.
Porque el supermercado coreano no vende solo ingredientes: vende la posibilidad de recrear esa experiencia en casa.
Because the Korean supermarket doesn't just sell ingredients: it sells the possibility of recreating that experience at home.
Cuando una familia coreana en Carrollton va al supermercado, no está comprando comida.
When a Korean family in Carrollton goes to the supermarket, they're not buying food.
Está comprando continuidad.
They're buying continuity.
Buying continuity.
That's exactly it.
And when you take that away, even temporarily, even by something as banal as an ingredients shortage, people feel it as a loss of identity.
Not just inconvenience.
Es que el arraigo cultural a través de la comida es muy difícil de sustituir.
Cultural rootedness through food is very hard to replace.
Puedes ver series coreanas en streaming desde cualquier parte del mundo.
You can watch Korean series on streaming from anywhere in the world.
Pero si no tienes gochujang, si no tienes doenjang, si no tienes los ingredientes básicos, hay una parte de tu identidad que simplemente no puedes acceder.
But if you don't have gochujang, if you don't have doenjang, if you don't have the basic ingredients, there's a part of your identity you simply can't access.
I spent two years in Buenos Aires in the nineties and there was a moment about six months in where I would have paid almost anything for a proper piece of cornbread.
It wasn't hunger.
It was something else.
Something I didn't have a word for at the time.
La palabra es 'añoranza'.
The word is 'añoranza'.
O en este caso, específicamente, 'morriña', que es una palabra gallega que describe esa nostalgia física, casi corporal, que sientes por el lugar del que vienes.
Or in this case, specifically, 'morriña', which is a Galician word that describes that physical, almost bodily nostalgia you feel for the place you come from.
Los gallegos la exportaron a toda la lengua española.
The Galicians exported it to the whole Spanish language.
Morriña.
That's a word that should exist in every language.
And I notice you used 'arraigo' earlier, too.
That's a word I've been hearing more and more.
'Arraigo' viene del verbo 'arraigar', que significa echar raíces en un lugar.
'Arraigo' comes from the verb 'arraigar', which means to put down roots somewhere.
Tiene que ver con 'raíz', que es 'root' en inglés.
It's connected to 'raíz', which is 'root' in English.
Una persona con arraigo es alguien que tiene raíces profundas en una comunidad, una cultura, un territorio.
A person with arraigo is someone who has deep roots in a community, a culture, a territory.
And you can also say 'sin arraigo', no roots, to describe someone who's displaced, unmoored.
Which is exactly the situation of a first-generation immigrant trying to find their gochujang in Carrollton, Texas.
Claro.
Right.
Y lo interesante es que 'arraigar' es un verbo que puede ser reflexivo o no.
And the interesting thing is that 'arraigar' can be reflexive or not.
Puedes decir 'la comunidad se ha arraigado aquí', que significa que ha echado raíces.
You can say 'la comunidad se ha arraigado aquí', meaning the community has put down roots here.
O puedes decir 'esta costumbre ha arraigado en la sociedad española', que significa que se ha establecido profundamente.
Or you can say 'esta costumbre ha arraigado en la sociedad española', meaning this custom has become deeply established in Spanish society.
So the community roots itself, but a custom also takes root on its own.
The verb works both ways.
And you'd say, what, 'la comida coreana ha arraigado en Madrid'?
Exacto, eso sería perfecto.
Exactly, that would be perfect.
'La comida coreana ha arraigado en Madrid.' Es una frase completamente natural.
'Korean food has taken root in Madrid.' That's a completely natural sentence.
Lo que me alegra es que lo has construido bien, sin ningún embarazo involuntario esta vez.
What pleases me is that you built it correctly, without any unintentional pregnancy this time.
Eight years and it still comes up.
I've made peace with it.
The waiter seemed fine about it, for the record.