Japan's top cooking school to offer classes in S Korean cuisine

South Korea will help Japan's top cooking school teach classes in Korean cuisine this year, as part of the government's effort to promote its traditional food abroad, the (South) Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation said Thursday.

The state-run agriculture trading agency said Hattori Nutrition College in Japan will begin offering 25 courses from April to December this year, where some 1,300 students and trainees will get to learn how to cook traditional Korean food, as well as the health benefits and history behind each dish.

In addition, the trade corporation said it is planning to have 10 chefs and cooking instructors working in Japan visit South Korea next week for a specialized four-day course on traditional Korean food at a local college.

Hattori is a prominent cooking school located in Tokyo which is widely regarded as the world's top three cooking institutions along with the U.S.-based Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and France's Le Cordon Bleu.

The South Korean government has been putting more emphasis on globalizing its traditional cuisine, as it recently announced plans to make Korean food one of the top five most popular cuisines in the world by 2017.