Another beautiful and touching write up, @missvictrix 🤗🤗
This emoji 🥰🥰🥰 is the perfect representation of this beautiful post of yours, I think

You first captured my heart through your use of the screen cap of Bok Joo stuffing her face (I love a girl who loves to eat and isn’t self conscious or afraid to show it!!), then you further solidified your capture of my heart through this, and I quote you:

“In K-dramas, preparing food for someone is more than being polite or hospitable. In dramaland it means love. Preparing food for someone is rarely seen as something other than an act of care, concern, and affection.”

And then, after what you said here— “...I love how strongly this scene shows the power of preparing food for someone. Something as banal as a bowl of instant ramen can hold someone’s entire heart ransom...”— my heart is now yours— hook, line, and sinker... Don’t mind me, I’m just in my little corner, crying tears of joy, and love, and appreciation for all the food and all the beautiful hands that have made it ❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I agree that food has really a big place in kdrama and shows perfectly affection. In a lot of scenes, the first question will ask parents is "Have you eaten?". I think it's very interesting, it replaces our "how are you?" And whether the answer is yes or no, they're ready to give all the food they have :p

I like the pictures @missvictrix chose : Cheese in Trap (and my second lead syndrom) and Come and Hug Me (the brother was so touching as character). It made me remind of Healer, when he ate breakfast with her family.

I didn’t understand the romantic notion of sharing ones food until I watched a kdrama. My husband did long before kdramas so when he saw it the first time, he made sure I noticed it. I rolled my eyes. But the more I watch and see it, the more I’ve seen it done. Turns out my parents do it too. But we’ve trained it out of them because my kids hate to be told what to eat (which is what it looks like to them). Here eat this, I’ll put it on your plate so you can’t refuse! I guess I have to spin it that it’s because they love them. 😜

Great article and summary of our viewing pleasure...may i add another way food use in k-drama?..is for comedic effect..i.e, not exactle a banana peel (although one drama did but cant recall which one, was it my private life?) comedy visuals can be the amount of food that is in the fridge (filled or empty) , and what kind of foods are eaten (either high brow or low brow) as well as stuffing someone else's mouth with a lettuce wrap! On a separate note ... Food is love in our culture and we (i) tend to do it overboard, sadly, misguided love in the U.S.

I like when characters eat or food is used to show affection somehow, it is natural and it's also a big part of their culture.

However I have to say something else. I can't stand people stuffing their mouths, it's disgusting, especially women. I don't know any woman that does it, but in kdramas it is often shown as cute. I would like to know if that is possible in their daily routine or if it's just something silly like wristgrabing and water splashing faces, something real people in Korea don't do.

This article also made me think of food use in Chief Kim, with The Glutton, being JunHo's character nickname (psychopath mokpo glutton 😗) . when the two leads reconcile, the one question, as i dimly recall, Chief Kim asks his boss was, how could you throw crackers at me when we first met, you didnt even know me? Of all the things that Glutton did to him, that was the worst humiliation haha....food was a great motif in that kdrama, even a candy bar being used to employ a GPS to help rescue JunHo.

We have two fundamental biological drives- the first is to grow and the second is to reproduce, ...and they are inextricably tied together (which is why one of the worst things you can suffer as a human is to be a parent unable to feed their child)....

On a happier note, this is why romances, but especially food-driven romances will always succeed in resonating with us!

(.....Taken from lecture #54876 to daughters on navigating coupling.....)

it's soooo cute. different type of love languages whether platonically or romantically. i know if someone is giving someone else food in a show, it means something! it's not the same here so at first i was like breh why are all these people so happy someone is putting chicken on their plate! but it's like being cared over. i love it when my friends are like "we found this vegan place especially for you!" like it makes me feel really loved !

The breakfast scene (episode 4) of Bridal Mask, when the two brothers ate together was one of the most memorable "food" scenes for me. (It still chokes me up when people try to eat, but can't because they are either crying, or about to cry.)

When I was in Taiwan back in the 70s "Have you eaten?" was a standard greeting. I used to joke with my students that it was a throwback to the days of poverty and occasional famine when that was a legitimate question.

Also, when I was visiting someone's family sometimes someone would put food in my bowl just like kdramas. I mostly didn't like that because some inexorable law of nature decreed that they would have different tastes in food than I did.

Some of my favorite drama staple scenes are when the heroine's parent gives the hero a piece of food on their spoon. Maybe because my parents do that, but it's so heartmelting every time.

@missvictrix You're right about the food thing in movies and TV series! My son is 4 and he keeps asking me why in movies and TV series they never eat? And it's true, there's rarely something like normal eating or sharing food in children's stories unless it's the main subject like in Ratatouille. When he saw a dinner scene in Meet the Robinsons je was asking me to make him this spaghetti with meatballs. I did it for him and I've never seen him swallowing spaghetti plate with as much pleasure. He could finally be a part of this imaginary world! For me it's sometimes a challenge because my man asked me once, while watching Detective Montalbano to make him one dish of Sicilian motherhood love. I didn't know the name of the dish and I was looking for it for a whole night until I've found it and I'm making "arancini di riso" now sometimes when motivated because it's so time consuming like Korean food. When my father tasted "kouign amann" while visiting me here in Brittany he had almost cried out of joy - he was like "It's the same like my mother was doing while baking bread!" His beloved mother died quite young, little bit after her retirement and he has his secret meeting with her whenever he's having this traditional butter cake from Bretagne. 2500 km distance between our homes reminded me that there're no borders when there's love involved and Food is Love...

I like it! I love to cook for others, but since I cook jummy, you made me think about wether I do it for love or affection or I do it for me, to receive praises... it may be something to meditate on a personal level.
But going back to our k-dramas, I also love LOVE the food component. I come from south America and in our soaps, characters barely eat, go to the toilet or sleep in front of the camera... the story is mostly being told through tons of dialogs (many of them nonsensical), and some action. Romance is told through words and lots of unnecessary skinship... you watch it, but your heart doesn't flutter, you don't feel almost anything and you barely can smile (or even have a good cry). You cannot feel those characters are real. Kdramas is the opposite. Apart from being insanely handsome, they are so real you feel you can touch them, and because of that, relatively good storytelling in most cases, music, scenography, good acting, etc, you can really feel things while watching a kdrama. And that is why I don't watch American productions anymore😉

so much depth and emotions you have poured through words in this write up.
believe me if i say... I never ever observed all the thing you have written above more than just actions. Not even once I thought that putting a fish piece or kimchi on someone's bowl could hold such deep meaning... i used to think its as simple as letting them know its there to eat not more than that. and then sharing food... oh woww... now i have to do some serious kdrama watching to not to miss such subtle yet emotional scenes.

Thanks for sharing.