Study on the Food Culture in Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty through Text Frequency Analysis
This study conducted a quantitative analysis of Joseon Dynasty food types and examined their historical evolutionary patterns over time by performing text frequency analysis on the entire articles of the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty. A total of 11,160 food-related terms were extracted into different food products. Staple foods accounted for 2,597 instances, with 895 (34.5%) in the 15th century, 555 (21.4%) in the 16th century, 406 (15.6%) in the 17th century, 543 (20.9%) in the 18th century, and 198 (7.6%) in the 19th century. For soups (tang types), the records were distributed evenly throughout the entire Joseon era, with 1,212 instances (31.1%) in the 15th century, 1,020 (26.2%) in the 16th century, 847 (21.7%) in the 18th century, and 408 (10.5%) each in the 16th and 19th centuries. When considering the frequency of appearance of each food type recorded in the Annals, the proportion of favorite foods was relatively high. This is because favorite foods have the property of conveying symbolic meaning and emotional value rather than the physical function of products. Therefore, it can be said to be the largest food cultural characteristic of the Joseon Dynasty Annals that were recorded by the Joseon ruling class.