The objective of this study was to examine head families’ culture based on their food. The subjects of this study were three cook books ( Suwunjapbang, Eumshikdimibang, and Onjubeop) of head families in the Gyeongsangbuk-do area written in the 16th to 18th centuries. First, the cultural aspect of head families’ food was studied through the motives and external environment for writing the cook books. The three cook books were written in need of good food for the head families’ social association and unity of the clan. That is, the head families’ practice of ‘ancestral ritual services and hospitality to guests and visitors’ was reflected in food. This is suggested by the meanings implied in the names of the cook books and the background for writing the books. The largest part of the cook books is occupied by wine, which represents head families’ food. It is because the head families needed wine not only for the rituals of coming-of-age, wedding, funeral, and ancestor worship but also for the development of human networks. Wine plays the role of catalyst softening human relations and that of lubricant promoting the unity of community. That is, wine is essential for the practice of ‘ancestral ritual services and hospitality to guests and visitors.’ Thus, this study discussed the production and consumption of wine as well as the consequent effects, and examined the functions of wine as food and medicine. This is not overlooking the harmful effect of wine on health, but just for understanding the head families’ salim (housekeeping) culture observed in a series of processes of making and consuming food in the chapters for wine. For this reason, the discussion of this study was limited to common wine brewing methods and medicinal wines. Emphasis on mind and attitude in brewing wine shows that, along with the cleanness of materials, the brewer’s purity and sincerity were required, and records on the efficacies of wine stress the importance of salim through food.