{"id":114461,"date":"2025-11-04T07:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T07:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/114461\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T07:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T07:08:07","slug":"how-culinary-class-wars-turned-korean-cultural-codes-into-global-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/114461\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Culinary Class Wars’ Turned Korean Cultural Codes Into Global TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNetflix<\/a>\u2019s first Korean culinary competition series has quickly become a breakout global hit \u2014 with Taiwan ranking among its most enthusiastic markets. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Taiwan Creative Content Fest<\/a> hosted producer Eunji Kim of Studio Slam, who broke down how the series evolved from a rough idea into a fully realized format.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore \u201cCulinary Class Wars<\/a>,\u201d Kim and her team produced the 2020 talent show \u201cSing Again,\u201d which spotlighted Korean singers who had released albums but never found mainstream recognition. That experience formed the foundational idea for their next project. \u201cWe wanted to make a competition show for chefs,\u201d Kim said. \u201cBut our first question was: how do we stand out against long-running giants like \u2018Top Chef\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the team, the answer was rooted in local culture. \u201cThis is a Korean variety show. We needed a cultural symbol that speaks directly to Korean audiences,\u201d Kim noted. In Korea, the spoon is a potent symbol of social class. That concept inspired one of the show\u2019s defining visual cues: the split between white-spoon chefs, representing the culinary elite, and black-spoon chefs, representing lesser-known talent.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot all participants immediately embraced the class-based format, but the creative team considered it central to the show\u2019s DNA. From early development, they committed to the dramatic tension of a concealed classification system as the core engine of the competition. \u201cFrom a production standpoint, we held firm to the show\u2019s structure,\u201d Kim said. \u201cBut how the chefs performed \u2014 how they presented themselves, how they marketed themselves \u2014 that was entirely improvised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough careful editing and narrative shaping, the team ultimately found that cultural specificity didn\u2019t limit the show; instead, its themes resonated widely with international viewers. Following the first season\u2019s success, the response from the culinary community shifted dramatically. \u201cFor Season 2, many chefs who turned us down the first time actually came back to us after watching the show,\u201d Kim revealed. \u201cThat boomerang effect proved that our approach wasn\u2019t just creatively sound \u2014 it had real commercial value.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom Korean cuisine and culturally rooted symbols to a competition format that speaks a universal entertainment language, \u201cCulinary Class Wars\u201d has achieved exceptional visibility on Netflix while pioneering a new style of reality-competition storytelling. As the series heads into a new season, global audiences are eagerly anticipating even more compelling narratives that go far beyond the kitchen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netflix\u2019s first Korean culinary competition series has quickly become a breakout global hit \u2014 with Taiwan ranking among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[73873,146,85,46,400,73565,73566],"class_list":["post-114461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-culinary-class-wars","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-netflix","tag-taiwan-creative-content-fest","tag-tccf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}