Jaha Koo's one-man show Haribo Kimchi, at the Festival theatre studio in Edinburgh until 24 August, combines live cooking with projected animations to explore how food preserves memory and cultural identity. The performance, a production for Campo in Ghent, invites two volunteers to join Koo at his pojangmacha, a Korean street-food snack bar, where he prepares several courses throughout the show.
A show guided by a singing snail and an eel
The narrative is framed by two animated creatures projected on a screen: a singing snail and an eel. The snail sings in Korean, “In every soil grows a different version of you,” echoing the eel's earlier sentiment, “My home has no location.” The eel, which lives a life of transformation moving between saltwater and freshwater, serves as a metaphor for Koo's own experience of displacement.
Koo left South Korea for Europe 15 years ago and carries the rootlessness of the displaced. His sense of alienation is deepened by racism he encounters, including an assistant who complains of a stench of garlic despite sitting behind a screen. This moment stands out as a rare dark note in an otherwise cheerful show.
Food as a vessel for memory and identity
The association with food is central to the piece. Koo, though adrift in the world, keeps his home with him through his national cuisine. As the show progresses, he cooks a cucumber starter, a kimchi pancake, a bowl of soup, and a pudding flavoured with seagrass, mint, and lime, which the two volunteer guests appear to enjoy.
Not all food-related memories are pleasant. After smelling the corpses lined up following the Gwangju pro-democracy uprising of 1980, Koo's father could not bear the smell of fried chicken and retreated to the countryside to escape it. This personal history adds weight to the otherwise light-hearted proceedings.
Community and comfort in cuisine
For the most part, Koo reflects on a country that, like many others, finds community in food. It brings identity and salvation, not least the Haribo gummies that cheer him up away from home. Like the snail and the eel, they keep him company, and naturally, the Haribos receive a song of their own.
The show is slight but sweet, using screen projections to aid storytelling. It runs at the Festival theatre studio in Edinburgh until 24 August as part of the Edinburgh festival.
