Umma: A Korean Mom's Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes

Description

James Beard Award winner * New York Times bestseller Learn Korean cooking alongside social media star Sarah Ahn as her umma passes down 100+ family recipes and decades' worth of kitchen wisdom. Sarah Ahn’s viral food videos of her and her mom have captivated millions of viewers with their behind-the-scenes look at Korean cooking and multigenerational home life. This collaboration is now a must-have cookbook blending the emotional intimacy of Crying in H Mart with practical culinary advice from Nam Soon’s lifetime of kitchen experience. The recipes are framed by mother-daughter conversations that are funny, profound, and universally relatable―plus all the food is backed by the recipe-testing power of America’s Test Kitchen. Thorough ingredient guide: Walk through a Korean grocery store with a Korean umma for in-depth guidance on what pantry ingredients and fresh produce and protein to buy. Recipes both traditional and contemporary: Learn to make everything from simple banchan, a variety of kimchi, and foundational stews to an assortment of yasik (midnight snacks) and inventive desserts. Kitchen wisdom from mother to daughter: Shared confidences open a window onto a level of family intimacy rarely seen in cookbooks. The Ahns understand that when generations come together in the kitchen, so much is shared: not only food, but also knowledge, advice, family history, and love. Review: Very nice - Very nice book. Truly recommend it. Review: Fabulous book - food made with love. - I have followed this wonderful Mother and daughter for a while, and I have never been so excited for a new cookery book. I've been reading it ever since it arrived and I'm only putting it down to go out shopping later for the ingredients for the dishes. Before getting into how wonderful they both are, the book itself is not your average cookery book. It's about how the food and the culture are one and the same, how the love that goes into the food is a way of expressing love to everyone it's made for, how that love is passed through generations. It's moving to be able to feel this and to feel it coming to you from the way the book is constructed - pages of advice on foundational Korean ingredients, how to discern what's good in produce, and explanations of how a meal is constructed, what the dishes mean. It brought to mind all the times I spent with my Mum when she was teaching me how to cook - explaining what every thing was, where it came from and why we, as a family, ate it. And this at core is what this is - a family cookbook with the notes your Mum and her Mum made. So, the recipes are really well explained with Ummas advice on what you can compromise on and the ingredients you absolutely can't. I really appreciate that as someone who has never really used some of the ingredients before. All the recipes have step by step instructions and photographs. The relationship between mother and daughter, the way food is an expression of love - I found it very moving to see this because you can't NOT see it or feel it. It's in every recipe, every tip, every little piece of advice. And it's pouring out of the stories that frame who they are and their journeys to get where they are. It's a wonderful cook book and so much more - I cannot recommend it enough.