• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.601-612
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• 2003

In Korean history, vegetables were the major side dishes of meals and originally korean diets were based on vegetables. But recently people prefer meat dishes rather than vegetables and traditional vegetable cooking seems to be disappeared. So it is needed to be positioning the importance of vegetables in food culture of Korean. In present study, history of vegetable eating was reviewed and recent consumption pattern were analyzed. 1. Since the era of the three Kingdom's and Koryo dynasty, the kinds of vegetables varied and at Chosun Dynasty people used similar kinds of vegetables as nowadays except a few things. A Garlic and mug wort had been used from the age of tribes to present and an egg, apple, cucumber, lettuce from the three Kingdom and a bamboo sprout, a taro, a burdock, a radish, a turnip, a stone-leek, a scallion, a Chinese cabbage, a marsh mallow, a spinach and a crown daisy from Koryo Dynasty and a pepper, a pumpkin, a tomato, a cabbage, a salary, a kale, a turnip and a beet from Chosun Dynasty to present. A guard, a water shield plant, a yam and wild plants would have been used before but they would not use any more. 2. Current vegetable consumptions of Korean is 232.2kg/person/yr and comparing with world mean consumption(101.9kg), Koreans still eat the largest amount of vegetables than any other countries and among Asian countries, Koreans consume more vegetables than China(203.5kg) and Japanese people(111.6kg) do. 3.The most frequently consumed vegetables were vegetables for seasonings such as a garlic or stone-leek and for kimchi such as a Chinese cabbage, radish, and carrot. But from data of Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey(2001), kinds of vegetables which people had were only 72 items showing that the kinds of vegetables were limited. 4. A lot of wild plants that would have been used for famine relief are now disappeared and on the other hand, it is increasing of some new and foreign vegetables and herbs. Cooking methods and intake pattern of vegetables are changed and varied so a traditional cooking method such as namuel is less preferred than before. But vegetable wrapping and green vegetable juice, eating uncooked vegetables(sang-sik) are very popular.