Along with five thousands years of history, our ancestors have started farming early from the prehistoric age. Therefore, the Hansik has diversified with a variety of food ingredients and culture compared to the adjacent countries such as China and Japan. In addition, geographical features of Korea having a lot of mountains and water have made to generate diverse specialties contained various dishes and flavors in every regions, As a example, the taste and flavors of the Kimchi which is the most recognized traditional Korean food in the world is shown on the different within regions according to the sauces and/or seasonings. Revealing the nutritionally balanced diet and functionality of the Korean food, the world has begun to recognize that the Korean food is one of the most healthy foods. It makes the Korean food to emerge as a precious resource generating a new value.

In the aspect, NAAS in RDA has published Korean Traditional Local foods - 10 volumes compiling a total of 3,252 kinds of traditional food from the nine provinces across the nation in 2008. And we have constructed the web-based system to search these Korean traditional local foods. We hope these books can be used as a special material to activate the local industry in the rural community, being the foundation to advance the 'Most Korean-styled foods into the most globalized ones'. We also believe this elaboration could help to develop the internal food culture as the crucial material for research and education.

Definition of 'Local food'

Korean local food is characterized by preferred food through centuries in a certain region, and making from the unique recipe of the region by local cooking specialists. It has evolved through centuries and developed with cultural events of that region. In this regard, local foods means that it has reflected of successively developing process of local tradition, with distinctive factors which are different from other regions.

Survey and Exploration of Local Food

Rural Resources Development Institute, NIAST, RDA, planned to make a collection of the local foods from 9 regions including Seoul, Gyeonggi-do,Gangwon-do, Chungcheongbuk-do, Chngcheongnam-do, Jeonbuk-do, Jeollanam-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Gyeongsangnam-do and Jeju-do from 1999 to 2005, during the surveying process, with the support of the local officers who were home economics specialists, the could collect the local food information and revive their recipes.

Methodology

• 1) Content Analysis The literatures included research reports, magazines, books, local publications, booklets published by the cities, countries and administrations for rural development across the nation, pamphlets, leaflet, and internet sources.
• 2) Survey A questionnaire for getting information of the daily foods, memorable foods, and recommendable foods were distributed to the local food experts, ordinary people, the society members as 'Korean traditional food research society', 'Korean food research society', 'Local food research society'.
• 3) Reviving of Recipes through Field Survey After listing the local food based on the data, a field survey was conducted over the foods that did not have precise recipes or had been lost with the support of the local Agricultural Technology Centers. The dishes without any records in literature, those only with the names, or those with little information about ingredients or recipes, were demonstrated directly. Through the cooking demonstration, ingredients, required amounts, cooking process were clearly recorded in the form of picture, slide and video.

Validation of Locality

An Expert Committee was organized by region aiming to validate the locality of the 14,308 kinds of local foods form 9 provinces, which had been explored by rural Resources Development from 1999 to 2005. The all expert committee members had a profound knowledge and lots of research experience of the local foods. They discussed the procedure and methodologies to validate the locality of each region food through 6 times of meeting

The recipe was limited into those native to the Korean region. The food ingredients were limited to those that had been used from before 1970 when imports stated drastically rising. Thus, the dishes cooked with the new ingredients, i.e., with black rice, were excluded. Through several times of consultation and revisions, the validation criteria were finally set up as follows.

1. Firstly, the dishes should be made from the local specialties. The strategically grown products or recently grown products are excluded.
2. Secondly, the cooking recipes should be unique method represented certain region. If a sea seed soup of a region is special in its coking recipe or ingredients, the soup can be regarded as the local food.
3. Thirdly, it must be largely preferred food by the regional residents for a long time, A food that was flown into the region and frequently eaten in the current is excluded.
4. Fourthly, the foods should be related with the regional environment. A food that is related with the natural environment, regional lifestyle and culture can be regarded as the local food.
5. Lastly, the foods should be validated as the local foods in scientific journal, classic literature and booklets related to the local foods published by each region. And when quoting the validated information from the journal, literature or booklets, their titles and sources must be presented. As a result of the validation work, 3,252 kinds of foods were finally selected as the local food among the 14,375 kinds originally surveyed and explored.

Revival of Recipe and Making Video

The recipes for the items with high potentiality of awareness, preservation and succession, and development and commercialization were revived, which were also made as video files.