Italian food suits Korean women

This paper analyses the negotiation transformation of Italian food tastes in Korea, focusing on how Koreans perceive Italian food (henceforth ITF), their evaluation criteria, how they adjust them into local taste in relation with the re-creation of glocal identity. It will highlight how the authenticity or the image of ITF and Italianness indicates that its defence is expressed along two lines: criticism of the “Koreanization” of ITF, but also the perception of Italianness in terms of a search for Koreanness in ITF. The paper suggests: that 1) on the cognitive level, the taste perception of ITF is based more on personal/individual or even group knowledge, familiarity, experience, and on overall attitudes toward food, frequency of consumption, preferences and evaluation criteria, rather than on the “myth” of the ITF image; 2) on a linguistic level, words used for ITF taste suggest differences in taste terminology and in the perception of food flavour according to one’s age and gender, reflected also on a semiotic-cultural level.