Korean tableware: 6 pieces for serving a Korean meal at home

A Korean meal is eaten with sujeo, the spoon and chopsticks together. The National Folk Museum of Korea explains that the spoon is for guk (soup) and bap (rice), and the chopsticks pick up banchan, the side dishes. Korean food has a lot of soup and broth, so the spoon is used often and is considered the more important of the two.

That is why a Korean table needs a few things a Western one may not: a long-handled spoon, small dishes for banchan, a lidded rice bowl, and a pot that can carry a stew to the table still hot. If you already own our cooking tools, including the dolsot stone bowl for sizzling bibimbap, these pieces cover the serving side. The picks run in that order: sujeo, a ttukbaegi, banchan dishes, rice bowls, lunch containers and a rice cooker.

Traditional sujeo were made of brass, white brass or silver, and some were carved from wood. Sets for men were made bigger than sets for women. After washing, they were kept in a sujeo holder or in a sujeojip, a cloth pouch of red silk or blue fabric that held two pairs and was embroidered with symbols of long life and good luck. A set of sujeo was also among the things prepared for a bride before her wedding.

The BAPMOO set follows the Korean shape: a long handle on the spoon and flat metal chopsticks, which the maker says give a balanced grip for noodles, rice and side dishes. It is a single setting, so buy one per person.

A ttukbaegi is a clay pot used mostly to cook guk (soup), then carried straight to the table. The folk encyclopedia notes that it can go right on the fire, holds heat well so the food stays hot, and usually has handles because it reaches the table hot. One-person sizes are common, but ttukbaegi come in sizes for up to four or five people. A small one used to steam eggs and serve them in the pot is called an alttukbaegi. Ttukbaegi are plain to look at, and a Korean saying makes that point: the pot may not look fancy, but what is cooked in it tastes good.

The BALWOO pot is the one-person size. Its listing calls it heat resistant but doesn't spell out stovetop or care steps, so check with the seller before you put it on a burner for the first time.

Banchan come in small portions, so 3.5-inch dishes are a practical size for a few bites of kimchi or seasoned vegetables, or for a dipping sauce. With six, you can set out several side dishes at once.

Stainless rice bowls with lids keep each person's rice covered until you sit down, and ZeeSOON says its bowls stack without toppling. Read the care line before you buy: these bowls can't go in the microwave, so reheat rice in another dish.

Dosirak is a native Korean word for a packed meal: rice and banchan in a container with a lid. It is an old habit. A song collection published in 1728, Cheongguyeongeon, has lyrics about men eating dosirak by a spring after a day of hard work, and people once carried rice and side dishes in small oval baskets woven from bamboo or wicker. Today, separate boxes keep side dishes out of the rice, which is what the three LocknLock containers are for.

Rice is the base of every dosirak, so we added a rice cooker. The Cuckoo CRP-P0609S makes up to 12 cups of cooked rice, and its nurungji setting makes scorched rice from the bottom of the pot. Cuckoo says the inner lid comes out for washing and the Auto-Clean setting steams the inside, so cleanup stays simple.