Edible Economics By Ha-joon Chang

In this first episode, the focus is on garlic.

`We Koreans don't just eat garlic. We process it. In industrial quantities. We are garlic. South Koreans go through a staggering 7.5 kg of garlic per person a year - twelve times what the Italians consume. If you have lived all your life among garlic monsters, you don't realise how much garlic you get through. That was me in late July 1986 when, aged twenty-two, I boarded a flight to start my graduate studies in the University of Cambridg

Today - the banana. We hear about Elvis Presley's favourite sandwich (banana and peanut butter), and about the banana companies that came to dominate Central and South America in the 19th century.

`These days many people in the United States and other rich nations know the term `banana republic` only as a clothing brand. But it was originally invented to describe the dark reality of near-absolute domination of poor developing nations by large corporations from rich countries. The choice of clothing brand name is at best ignorant and at worst offensiv

Today: okra, a vegetable Ha-Joon discovers when he first arrives in Britain:

`There were some vegetables that I had never tasted before coming to Britain but whose existence I had known about through books and movies - broccoli, beetroot, turnip and suchlike. But I had never even heard of okr

Today - rye.

Ha-Joon had never encountered rye in South Korea, but he was a lover of English detective stories, and coming to Britain he was determined to taste the food which inspired his favourite Agatha Christie detective story, `A Pocket Full of Rye`. Once tasted, he never looked back - soon he was snacking late-night on rye crispbread when burning the midnight oil as a graduate student. Exploring the history of rye, he discovers that it's so important in Germany that it's crucial to the creation in the late 19th century of the first welfare state in the world - by Otto von Bismarck.

`People in today's rich countries owe their security - and prosperity - to a humble, hardy grain - rye.`

Professor Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at SOAS University of London, and is one of the world's leading economists. His books include Economics: The User's Guide, Bad Samaritans and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.

Reader Arthur Lee is a British actor of Korean descent who made his international debut on HBO Cinemax's Strike Back in 2015 and who recently appeared in Doctor Who. Arthur grew up mostly in London, but also spent several years in South Korea advancing his knowledge of Korean language and culture.

Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke

Executive Producer: Jo Rowntree

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

Read by Arthur Lee. Today, rye and the welfare state.

Today - chocolate.

As Ha-Joon Chang says, `I have a confession to make. I am an addict. My habit started in the mid-1960s, when I was a toddler (yes, I was precocious). The illegal substance that I first got hooked on was smuggled out of American military bases and sold on the black market in the South Korea of my childhood. It was called M&M's.

Black market in M&M's? I am not making it up. At the time in Korea, the importing of foreign goods other than the machines and raw materials directly needed for the country's industrialization was banned - passenger cars, TVs, biscuits, chocolates, even bananas, you name it. Smuggling in things like cars and TVs from abroad was very difficult, but enterprising Koreans smuggled smaller consumer items on a large scale out of the American military bases that dotted the country at the time (we still have some). Chocolate was one of the most popular item

It begins with garlic.

“We Koreans don't just eat garlic. We process it. In industrial quantities. We are garlic. South Koreans go through a staggering 7.5 kg of garlic per person a year – twelve times what the Italians consume. If you have lived all your life among garlic monsters, you don't realise how much garlic you get through. That was me in late July 1986 when, aged twenty-two, I boarded a flight to start my graduate studies in the University of Cambridge - �

Coming to the UK for the first time, “garlic monster� Ha-Joon is shocked to discover the blandness of English food. But Britain in the 80s was on the cusp of a culinary revolution, opening up to many other food cultures. In Professor Chang's own field of economics, however, he says that the discipline has become increasingly narrow. There is too little debate, he claims, and this really matters because economics doesn't just affect government policies and our own individual economic situation:

“It changes who we are. Economics creates ideas. It affects what people see as normal, how people view each other, and what behaviour people exhibit to fit in. So an economic theory that believes humans to be almost exclusively driven by self-interest will create a society where cooperation is more difficult.�

Professor Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at SOAS University of London, and is one of the world's leading economists. His books include Economics: The User's Guide, Bad Samaritans and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.

Reader Arthur Lee is a British actor of Korean descent who made his international debut on HBO Cinemax's Strike Back in 2015 and who recently appeared in Doctor Who. Arthur grew up mostly in London, but also spent several years in South Korea advancing his knowledge of Korean language and culture.

Written by Ha-Joon Chang.

Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke

Executive Producer: Jo Rowntree

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in September 2022.

Professor Ha-Joon Chang, a hungry economist explores why economics matters.

With a passion for food, Professor Ha-Joon Chang is “a hungry economist� who explains the world. Read by Arthur Lee.

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