[Gallery Walk] A Table Without the Smell of Rice, Serving 3,000 Years of Hunger

Special Exhibition "Our Table" at the National Museum of Korea
The Roots of K-Food Illuminated Through 684 Artifacts from 51 Institutions
"When the Museum Asked, 'Have You Eaten?' a 3,000-Year Table Unfolded"
Korean Food Culture Before K-Fo

The exhibition begins with the phrase, "Have you eaten?" In Korean, "bap" (rice/meal) was not just a meal, but a greeting. People would ask if you had eaten before asking how you were. The special exhibition "Our Table" at the National Museum of Korea transforms this familiar greeting into a question posed by the museum: What have we been eating? And since when did eating become a way to describe our lives?

Hongjoon Yoo, Director of the National Museum of Korea, is delivering a greeting at the press preview of the special exhibition 'Our Table' held on the 30th at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

This is a food exhibition, but there is no actual food. There is no steaming rice, no broth, and no side dishes. Instead, you will find charred rice grains and lumps of beans, a 1,700-year-old chopping board, spoons and chopsticks excavated from King Muryeong’s tomb, and records of regional flavors recalled by Heo Gyun during his exile. If the exhibition were about the present state of K-food, it might naturally highlight the global popularity of ramen, gimbap, and bibimbap. However, the museum has chosen to showcase the oldest and most unassuming artifacts instead. It is as if to say that the table was a form of survival before it became a trend.

The National Museum of Korea is holding the special exhibition "Our Table" from July 1 to October 25, 2026 in Special Exhibition Hall 2 at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. A total of 51 institutions collaborated to gather 684 items from 488 cases for display. Among them are five items designated as treasures and six items from two cases designated as national folk cultural heritage. This is the first special exhibition by the National Museum of Korea to comprehensively explore Korean food culture using archaeological, historical, artistic, and folk materials.

The first pillar of the exhibition is rice. Charred rice grains from the Bronze Age, excavated in Heunam-ri, Yeoju, are evidence that rice cultivation was already taking place on the Korean Peninsula about 3,000 years ago. Here, the table is not about food, but about farming, storage, and the community. The act of planting, harvesting, cooking, and sharing rice was not just about a single meal, but about creating a way of living together. Hongjoon Yoo, Director of the National Museum of Korea, said, "Choosing the table as an exhibition theme is a proposal to revisit the roots of K-food and the closest scene to our daily lives that we have faced every day."

On the 30th, attendees are touring the special exhibition "Our Table" at the press preview held at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

One of the most impressive scenes in the exhibition is where the chopping board excavated from Gochon-ri, Gijang, Busan, meets Park Sookeun’s painting "Dried Yellow Corvina on the Chopping Board." One is a cooking tool from the 3rd to 4th century, and the other is a still life painted in 1952. Although more than a thousand years apart, both point to the same activity: the place where someone washed, sliced, and prepared food. In this context, the museum artifacts are not dead objects, but return to the time of the hands preparing a meal.

The table was a place to eat alone, as well as together. Kim Hongdo’s paintings "Tavern" and "Snack Break," along with Kim Deuksin’s "Eating and Drinking Gathered by the River," show that meals were not confined to the home. People ate on the road, in the fields, and by the riverside. The table was a place where work and rest, business and drinking, social status, and community briefly converged. The "Wonhaengeumyojeongriuigwe," which records the eight days of daily meals shared by King Jeongjo and his mother Lady Hyegyeong Hong, demonstrates that the table could also be a language of etiquette and governance.

The second half of the exhibition traces the process of nature transforming into the table. Heo Gyun’s "Domundaejak" is a record of regional delicacies he remembered during his exile. Delicacies such as Gangneung’s Bangpungjuk (soup made with coastal herbs), Boeun’s jujube, Bang-eo (icefish) from the Han River, radish from Naju, and abalone from Jeju are all described in his writings. It is an act of eating food again through memory, even if it cannot be physically consumed. Rather than culinary bravado, Heo Gyun’s records are closer to a way of remembering regions and seasons.

On the 30th, attendees are viewing the special exhibition "Our Table" during the press preview held at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

Storage, fermentation, and seasoning illustrate the passage of time at the table. Charred lumps of beans from the 3rd to 5th centuries are presumed to be the oldest form of meju (fermented soybean block). The 16th-century cookbook "Juchochimjeobang" contains recipes for kimchi using fish sauce. The exhibition also features charred perilla seeds from the Bronze Age and a celadon plum bottle from the Goryeo Dynasty that once held honey. The flavors of Korea were not created by ingredients alone. Drying, preserving, fermenting, and waiting—these processes and the time invested produced the taste.

To overcome the limitations of a "foodless food exhibition," the museum has arranged sounds, videos, and cooking scenes throughout the exhibition hall. The sounds of setting the table, onomatopoeia and mimetic words related to food, cooking videos in collaboration with Onjieum Matgongbang, and writings by Joseon scholars on how to eat lettuce wraps all evoke flavors in indirect ways. Actor Ryu Suyoung provides audio guides for 21 major exhibits. At the end of the exhibition, interviews with nine food culture experts, including Professor Ju Yeongha of the Academy of Korean Studies, Chef Kang Mingoo, and Monk Jeonggwan, are also featured.

At the press preview of the special exhibition "Our Table" held on the 30th at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, attendees are examining a work by Kim Hongdo. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

"Our Table" does not flaunt the current state of K-food. Instead, it slows down the pace. At a time when the world consumes Korean food, the museum first presents the charred rice grains and the old chopping board. Today’s table was once labor before it became a matter of taste, a preservation technology before it became a trend, and a way of living together before it became a menu. Behind the lighthearted question, "What should we eat?" lies such a long history.

The exhibition continues until October 25, 2026. Admission is free from July 1 to July 5 following the opening.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.