National Museum of KoreaYongsan-gu
The Korean Table: Food, Nature, and Life
This exhibition has ended.
A special exhibition exploring Korean culinary culture and its relationship to nature and everyday life, on view in Special Exhibition Gallery 2.
Museum websiteMore in Seoul
You walk in to a few blackened grains of rice, burnt in a Bronze Age house about 3,000 years ago and dug up in 1979. The museum calls this its largest show on Korean food: 684 objects from 51 lenders.
The first half, "A Table Shared with Life", is about how Koreans have eaten, and the second, "A Table Shaped by Nature", about what. Along the way are King Muryeong's spoon and chopsticks, a 1,700-year-old chopping board, Silla jars of fish remains and pheasant eggs, and records of a 45-dish royal birthday banquet, with cooking soundscapes and big screens mapping where food comes from. In a country where "Have you eaten?" doubles as hello, this is the 3,000-year answer.
It's in Special Exhibition Gallery 2 until 25 October. Adults pay 5,000 won, half price on Wednesdays after 6pm, and it stays open until 9pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Book on Ticketlink or Naver. Actor Ryu Su-young voices the audio guide for 21 works.
Editor's pick
A special exhibition on Korean food and how it ties to nature and daily life, in Special Exhibition Gallery 2. Go before lunch, not instead of it.
Look for
The Bronze Age rice
Look for a handful of charred rice grains, burnt in a dwelling about 3,000 years ago and excavated in 1979; the show opens with them.
Pheasant eggs in a Silla jar
Ten eggs preserved in ceramic jars found near the Cheonmachong tomb in Gyeongju, identified as pheasant rather than chicken.
King Muryeong's spoon and chopsticks
A 6th-century Baekje royal spoon and chopsticks with their stand, from the king's tomb, ancestors of the flat metal chopsticks Koreans still use.
Kim Hong-do's A Tavern
A late-18th-century genre painting of a customer sitting cross-legged, scraping the last rice from his bowl.
Queen Sunwon's birthday banquet
Court records and a banquet scene from the queen's 60th birthday celebration, a meal of 45 dishes.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
With kids
Under-6s are free and ages 7 to 24 pay 3,000 won. Alongside the cases there are cooking soundscapes and large screens mapping where food comes from.
Also at National Museum of Korea
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Image credits
5
- FROM 1926 TO INFINITYCourtesy of National Hangeul Museum
- Sol LeWitt: Open StructureCourtesy of Amorepacific Museum of Art (APMA)
- National Museum of KoreaJinah78 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- War Memorial of KoreaAdbar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Amorepacific Museum of Art (APMA)kallerna / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0