our roots

Hi, I'm SuIn, founder of forward ROOTS, a woman-led artisanal food company based in NY. Forward Roots is about preservation - of heritage, flavors, a way of eating & cooking. Using natural ingredients, we apply age-old preservation techniques of fermentation, to create award-winning healthy delicious pantry staples that are convenient & versatile for the modern cook, YOU.

I’ve been around food all my life - cooking alongside my mother (Kim Ji-Eun), watching, tasting, cooking, adding the final touches.

I grew up involved in the annual kimjang with my mom and her sister friends. We gathered around the kitchen floor, sharing stories, as the house filled with laughter and animation. The final process required the full day and each woman worked with purpose, devotion and generosity.

My mother was a quiet woman in public but in private she was feisty, an amazing story-teller & historian with a generous spirit.

My mother never recognized her culinary genius. She made everything from scratch, so growing up I thought that was the norm in every home. Years later, I discovered not many households did - especially not the whole pantry! My mother preserved and fermented; she made kimchi, gochujang (red chili pepper paste), cheonggukjang & doenjang (soybean paste), jang (soy sauce), jeotgal (fermented fish & seafood). She took immense pleasure in their transformation, from simple ingredients to complex, pungent, flavor-powered cooking essentials that seasoned all our foods, on their own or layered.

If you grew up eating homemade, you know that commercially produced foods fall short of personal intentions, mastery and love that goes into home-cooking. Homemade meals create fond memories, activates a deep longing, and a spirited desire to re-create, coming full circle.

The fermented Kimchi Sauce is a connection to my mother; it’s the co-creation of my ancestors, and the flavors of my earliest recollections. As my mother passed her knowledge to me, I wish to pass to my daughter, nieces and nephews; the next generation born and raised in North America. It is my wish that they forever celebrate & preserve their heritage. With each subsequent generation, we move further away from our traditional knowledge and connections to the place of our origin; I hope to close some of that gap through our foods, our observances, our ROOTS.

Food is our common humanity. Feeding each other is a way to learn & appreciate one another, cultivate relationships, and open our doors to welcome others in. I wish to share my roots, plus the influences of the people and cultures I’ve been fortunate to exchange with along the way. Their impact is FORWARD-moving from my roots. So what I share are traditional foods from my birthplace, what I grew up eating, as well as influences that combine flavors of my sisters & brothers from other cultures both near and far.