Cultivating Korean Greens in North Texas

In “Cultivating Korean Greens in North Texas,” Gravy reporter Elizabeth Myong explores how Korean American communities are gardening in North Texas. She reflects on her upbringing in the Richardson suburbs, where she grew up eating Korean herbs and plants from her family’s backyard. 

 

Those fresh greens were made into dishes with “son-mat,” which directly translates to “hand taste.” It’s the flavor of seasoned hands, usually of a mother or grandmother, making something especially for you. It’s the flavor of love and care mixed with earthen, locally-grown staples like kkaenip (sesame leaves), buchu (Korean garlic chives), and gochu (chili peppers).

 

In recent years, this intimate taste has been overshadowed by flashier, bolder flavors that have become popular with the commercialization of Korean food. But across North Texas, Myong shares the homemade food being made from backyard gardens and kitchens.  

 

Heangjin Park is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison who studies Korean diasporic communities and food. He explains that Korean gardening creates a sense of belonging.

 

“You are being transplanted and rooted in [this] new place. I think that there's a symbolic or metaphorical dimension of Korean gardening.” 

 

In the summer’s sweltering Texas heat, Myong’s mother Jan annually makes kkaenip-jangajji, pickled sesame leaves, with fresh leaves plucked from her garden. In the suburb of Carrollton, couple Sofia Kwak and Kenneth Jung grow their own bountiful garden filled with Korean lettuce, eggplant, bitter melon, zucchini, minari, jeok gat (Korean red mustard greens) and ah oh (cluster mallow.) In Irving, Duke Dukbong Yoon uses a homi, a traditional Korean hand plow, to harvest jujubes, mugwort, Korean peppers, corn and pumpkins.