[Book Sip] Is Bourbon Whiskey Made from Corn Stalks? 'Food Odyssey'

Jang Jun-woo's 'Food Odyssey'

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. Here, we introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

From a bowl of gukbap to a plate of curry, countless stories, thoughts, and untold tales behind the food unfold within the pages. The author, who cooks food using ingredients while simultaneously cooking up the stories contained in the food, introduces unfamiliar ingredients or dishes, sometimes presents familiar ingredients and dishes in a new light, and also offers content that helps understand the food culture of other countries.

When it comes to corn, we usually eat only the kernels and discard the corn stalks, but the fact is that the corn stalks contain sweet juice! Indigenous peoples of South America made two kinds of alcohol using corn. One was corn beer, made by using the kernels like barley, and the other was corn stalk liquor, made by squeezing the juice from the corn stalks. Early settlers from Scotland in America distilled this corn stalk liquor, which is known today as the prototype of bourbon whiskey.

Butter is broadly divided into unsalted, lightly salted, and salted butter depending on whether salt is added. Salt was added in the past to slow down butter spoilage. Nowadays, the distinction is made more for taste and usage than preservation. Salted butter, with about 2% added salt, has a much stronger flavor than unsalted butter. It means it is nuttier and tastier. If you are spreading it on bread, salted butter is preferable, but if you are using it for cooking or baking, unsalted butter is better. Recently, fermented butter, which undergoes fermentation during the butter-making process to add a fresh acidity and subtle flavor, can also be found.

In fact, pasta only became a popular food in Italy relatively recently. Around the Middle Ages, Arabs produced dried pasta on the southern Italian island of Sicily, while fresh pasta appeared in the north, and at that time, it was quite an expensive ingredient. It was only in the 18th century that common people could eat pasta freely. With industrialization, factories were established, enabling mass production. Pasta began to be supplied to solve famine problems and became a staple food to alleviate hunger.

Jang Jun-woo's Food Odyssey | Written by Jang Jun-woo | Book&Media Dnter | 16,000 KRW