Chuseok

Chef Ji Hye Kim, owner of Michigan restaurant Miss Kim, knows something about improvised, atypical Chuseok celebrations herself. She shares her hobak jeon ...

But if you’re cooking for a larger group, Kim’s tip is to salt the squash slices in advance to draw out water, which she lightly dabs off before dredging and frying the jeon. When the pan is hot, place the zucchini slices that have been dipped in the egg mixture in the heated oil. “Small patty pan squash is fun, because when you cut it in half, it looks like a little UFO, and in the Michigan farmers’ markets, I look for smaller zucchini, which tend to have fewer seeds and less water,” Kim explains. When cooking for yourself or just one other diner, as Kim does during the holiday, she recommends eating hobak jeon right off the pan before the squash slices have a chance to turn soggy from their natural water content. “What I learned from her was the clean taste of homemade food.” “But I always liked them right off the pan,” Kim says with a mischievous smile, “so I’d linger to try and get the hottest ones.” In Kim’s family, as in many Korean households, the women would spend an entire day frying huge batches of jeon for the multiple days of Chuseok, which they’d store in a basket then reheat at mealtime. “I feel great about making jeon, a dish that’s so much about celebration, for just the two of us,” she says. The savory fritters come in endless forms, and lend themselves well to improvising. “Chuseok used to be a village-wide celebration, with food shared between neighbors who would all come out for ganggangsullae,” she says, referring to a traditional Korean dance that women perform in a large circle under the full harvest moon. “Before the pandemic, we’d have family-style feasts with huge platters of Chuseok food,” says Kim, explaining that her restaurant has adapted since then by offering ready-to-eat meals for at-home diners and adding holiday specialties like torantang (a savory, nutty taro soup) to the menu. But I didn’t know any of that as a [Korean-American](https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/eric-kim-korean-american-cookbook) kid in Virginia and Florida.