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Among many Koreans with whom I have spoken there is an unfortunate misconception: that, apart from fish and chips, British cuisine doesn't exist. This illusion persists even among the very wisest and most unimpeachable members of society, namely my wife.

Accompanying this belief is an unspoken comparison between Korea's impressive culinary achievements and Britain's alleged lack thereof: look at all the jjangs and tangs, the jeons and myeons and baps and guks. What from your rainy island can compare with our ancient and succulent smorgasbord? But while I certainly do love Korean food, I fundamentally reject the premise that Britain's fare is as poor as everyone thinks. Pervading the conversation are several assumptions about Korean food, so to explore why the myth perseveres so doggedly, I'd like to consider a few select dishes and discuss what they suggest about K-food.

First: noodles. The BBC reported last month that Denmark's food agency issued a recall on Korean Buldak instant noodles because the food was so spicy that it posed "a risk of the consumer developing acute poisoning." To the delight of spice-lovers across the world, the Danish authorities reversed their recall this week.

The BBC article and others that followed contained a mild undertone of levity, but while most coverage focused on the details of the case – the Danish agency's statement, the company's response, whether the Danes are simply unable to take the heat – what caught my attention was the use of the word to describe the food in question: ramen.

Perhaps I have lived in Korea so long that a latent sense of nationalism has started to rub off on me, because I can't help thinking it's inaccurate to use the term ramen to describe Korean noodles. Ramen is a Japanese word referring to Japanese food, while the Korean word ramyeon (also spelled ramyun) signifies a different dish with a different origin. For readers wanting a detailed exploration of the differences, The Korea Herald published a brief but thoughtful piece on the question a few years ago. Although the food and even the word ramyeon both derive from Japanese, the two words (and foods) remain distinct.

Confusingly, several Korean food manufacturers label their product as "ramen" – including Samyang, the makers of the Buldak noodles that have proven so dangerous to delicate Danish tongues. Given the historical animosity between Korea and Japan, it is hard to understand why Korean companies would be willing to have their products subsumed under a word implying they are something else, and a Japanese something at that.

The word should, I think, be consistently spelled either "ramyeon" or "ramyun" in English; the former is preferable since it conforms to the Korean government's romanisation standards. This spelling would distinguish the Korean noodle from its Japanese counterpart and would give a further boost to the culinary reputation of a nation whose cultural standing has already been so advanced over the past decade. Korea now has the international clout that it previously lacked to assert its own gastronomical distinctiveness.

Among all the world's problems, the way we spell the name of a noodle is certainly not the worst. But spelling does matter because words say so much about origins. This becomes particularly clear when we think of the hullabaloo a few years ago surrounding the apparent attempts by Chinese officials to suggest that kimchi is Chinese. After all, the clash stemmed from the conflation of the Korean word "kimchi" and the Chinese word "pao cai," implying the two are the same (and both Chinese). Following the predictable uproar in Korea, some parts of the Chinese media rowed back, suggesting that the whole issue was simply due to poor translation.

In any case, the defence of kimchi's Koreanness has always been far more passionate than the rather lackadaisical approach to the ramen/ramyeon question. This is easily explained in that the spelling debate is a question of English semantics, hardly the most riveting topic for Korean netizens. Kimchi is also far older, dating back centuries or perhaps millennia; the noodle's mere decades pales in comparison. And of course, kimchi is Korea's representative food: to meddle with it is to face the wrath of a nation.

But an interesting counterpoint to kimchi comes in the form of jjajangmyeon. It was developed in Korea, is sold in Korea and in Korean restaurants abroad, and is eaten almost exclusively by Koreans. Yet the food is categorised here not as hansik (i.e. Korean food) but chungsik (Chinese food).

The direct explanation for this is found in jjajangmyeon's origins as a dish based on Chinese food and developed by Chinese immigrants – though it's worth noting that the food was created in a restaurant in Incheon. But can we really describe as "Chinese" something that is eaten almost exclusively by Koreans in Korea, particularly when it's not widely eaten in China or by Chinese people?

And what about the products derived from jjajangmyeon? Are such foods as chapaghetti not Korean? Or Jjajangbap? They have been developed in Korea by Koreans for the Korean market, but they derive from a dish labelled Chinese. Where do they fit in?

And yet I think Koreans do actually accept jjajangmyeon as Korean in deed if not in name. It is sold in Korean restaurants across the world, and I imagine that if a representative of a neighbouring country made noises that suggested jjajangmyeon really was Chinese, Koreans would reject this loudly and clearly.

To me it only makes sense to see jjajangmyeon (and its modern descendants) as Korean. Perhaps this is because I come to the whole issue as someone who grew up and studied in London, where nationality, citizenship and belonging are much more loosely-held concepts. Identity in the U.K. is less dependent on the past – origins, history, race – and more on the present – location, citizenship, sentiment. In Korea, it is all bound up together, as I've written before: you can only be accepted as Korean if you tick all the right boxes.

These attitudes extend not just to identity but to food too. While Britain does have an assortment of delectable "traditional" foods – biscuits, breakfasts, cheeses, crisps, muffins, pasties, pies, roasts, salads, sandwiches, sausages, scones, soups – it also has embraced all kinds of other dishes. Coronation chicken and chicken tikka masala are just as British as baked potatoes, and so are whatever the modern dishes being developed in trendy overpriced eateries in Shoreditch and Soho.

Our food reflects so much about us. Underlying the claim that Britain has no cuisine is the implication that a nation's food cannot have outside influences to be truly from that country. It's the same reason everyone calls jjajangmyeon Chinese despite all the evidence to the contrary.

So there we have it: jjajangmyeon is Korean, kimchi is not Chinese, and British food does indeed exist. And best of all, our Danish friends once again have access to ramyeon.

Dr. Scott Shepherd (scottshepherd@chongshin.ac.kr) is a British-American academic. He has taught in universities in the U.K. and Korea, and is currently an assistant professor of English at Chongshin University in Seoul. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.