For decades, such foods were the preserve of students, singletons and harried mothers. But tastes are changing along with the technology behind the production of these meals
P icture something you can make in an instant. You’re probably thinking of noodles or rice, or an egg, fried or boiled.
Depending on where you’re from, you may have tried instant mashed potatoes before. There’s also instant gravy, oatmeal, custard and soup. These foods all contain a very limited number of main ingredients – in many cases, just one.
That’s because until relatively recently, the technology needed to make anything more complex simply didn’t exist. So for decades, instant foods remained a convenience beloved by students, singletons and busy home cooks in need of a quick and dirty fix for rounding out a meal. That was until the rise of the home meal replacement (HMR).
Billed as ready-to-eat repasts that can increasingly provide all the elements of a healthy, balanced diet, HMRs are big business – especially in South Korea, where the market for them almost quadrupled over the course of five years, from 800 billion won (US$716 million) in 2011 to 3 trillion won (US$2.68 billion) in 2017.
The secret to HMRs’ success in the East Asian nation is undoubtedly down to the time they help save, which matters even more in its ppalli-ppalli, or “hurry hurry”, culture that places such great emphasis on speed.
This culture, a legacy of the country’s rapid industrialisation in the 20th century, also explains the long hours many in South Korea spend at work, allowing little time for them to relax.
Ian Hoffman is a native Chicagoan who moved to Busan – South Korea’s second-biggest city – two years ago to teach. The 24-year-old is learning the language and hopes to receive his long-term resident visa soon. It means he doesn’t have a lot of free time.
“I don’t want to be using it for cooking,” he says. “The reasons for purchasing HMRs are multifaceted. It is cost-efficient to buy this pre-prepared food, especially if you buy it online or in bulk. Also, I’m not Korean but I’ve been living here for a while and I can feel the social pressure of looking weird eating alone. I feel quite uncomfortable eating alone at affordably priced food places. There’s also not a tonne of restaurants where I can eat alone because of serving or table culture reasons.”
Korean families, too, find themselves with little time to cook.
“I always buy some packaged curry rice or hamburger steak when I go grocery shopping,” says Park Jung-min, a housewife from Seoul.
