The Korean meal is not served in successive courses but as a shared table: a bowl of rice (bap) for each diner, a stew or simmered soup (jjigae/guk) at the center, and a constellation of small side dishes (banchan) that everyone picks from freely with their chopsticks. There is neither starter nor dessert in the French sense: everything arrives together, the balance is made in each person's bowl. Sweets and sweet drinks like sikhye close the meal.

Umami heart of Korean cuisine, doenjang is made by fermenting soybean blocks (meju) for months. For Ha-Joon Chang, this slow fermentation — a patient, collective know-how — is the very image of an economy built over time, not in the instant of the market. He discusses it in *Edible Economics* as a product that defies the idea that everything must be fast and 'efficient'.