American Chef’s ‘Bibimbap’ with Tater Tots is Triggering Koreans Hard

March 4, 2019

A bibimbap recipe featured in a segment on Food Network’s “Guy’s Ranch Kitchen” has been raising so many Asian eyebrows on social media.

While originally aired back in December 2018, the clip recently got social media attention when it was re-uploaded by an unimpressed netizen on Facebook in January.

Prepared by American chef Justin Warner during the show’s season 2 episode 7 “Easy NorCal Brunch,” this version of bibimbap has become heavily criticized for being a heavily-Americanized attempt at the popular Korean rice dish.

Let’s put some emphasis on the “rice” here since this is where the so-called recipe starts to become “weird” as host Guy Fieri himself noted when he heard Warner was replacing rice with potato nuggets.

It should be noted that in bibimbap, the “bap” noun refers to rice, while “bibim” means mixing various ingredients. The hot dish is typically prepared quite simply enough, topping a bowl of warm white rice with namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste), soy sauce, or doenjang (a fermented soybean paste). Popular additions include raw or fried egg and sliced meat (usually beef).

Gochujang, which Warner hilariously called the “soy sauce of Korea,” was even mixed with Apple cider just to add some more insult to this cultural injury of a dish.

Facebook user Tammy Lee, who posted the now viral clip of this recipe, rightfully dubbed Warner’s creation “bibimnot.”

“First of all… gochujang is GOCHUJANG. Gochujang is NOT the soy sauce of Korea because guess what???? SOY SAUCE is the SOY SAUCE OF KOREA,” Lee wrote in the caption.

She then went on: “Also… the second you put some raggedy ass tater tots in that Dolsot bowl guess what your dish became? NOT BIBIMBAP! Bibim means “mixed” and bap means “rice”. It’s mixed rice… NOT MIXED TATER TOTS. Get the Apple cider f**** outta here with this ugly ass unappetizing ass pot full of cultural appropriation and failure. Just call it “a bunch of bullshit in a bowl” … don’t get on national tv and call it bibimbap…. this is BIBIMNOT.”

Warner’s horrendous bibimnot starts at the 4:00 mark:

Most of the commenters agreed that the dish was a huge mistake.

“You know they always have to ‘water down’ authenticity and put their stamp on it…” one user lamented.

“I’m about to write them a letter. I will not stand for this blasphemy!!!!!” another wrote.

“Why do ignorant ass white ppl always gotta mess with other country’s food?” wondered a netizen. “This is s insulting as Andrew Zimmern’s bullshit with the Chinese. They need to GTFO here with that weak ass mess. Ugh. When non-Koreans act like they know about us and our culture, only to disrespect us.”

“Bibimbap is already such a ‘safe’ dish for people who haven’t tried Korean food before,” a commenter on Food Network’s website wrote. “White people don’t need you to Americanized their food so much just to give it a try. Also soy sauce is the soy sauce of Korea. An old Korean man once called my dads bad cooking an accident. This is a bigger accident than when they announced the wrong winner at the Oscars. Would have left 0 stars if I could.”

To wash off that bad taste left by Warner’s recipe, here’s an actual bibimbap recipe from Future Neighbor:

Featured image via YouTube/FES World TV

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