The Food Issue

Anyang!
I hope this finds you all well in the new year, slightly and happily plump from holiday feasts! In light of the delicious food that is consumed the world over in hopes of negating the cold or just plain dreariness that seems to come hand-in-hand with December and January, I have decided to write a bit on the food of South Korea. That, and it seems like people have had more questions than usual regarding the cuisine. This is hard time of year for my family, family friends and myself, and, since Evan was such a lover of food and culinary arts, this write up is in his memory...I think he would enjoy it.

Korean food is overall spicy, spicy, spicy and very healthy. They use a lot of chili peppers, chili paste, garlic and soy products as well as veggies and the eastern staple--rice (bap in Korean). They also eat a lot of seafood (Korea is a relatively small peninsula with many rivers), and plenty of meat (beef, pork, chicken, duck....dog). Of course, there is one dish that is found at every single meal, even at non-korean establishments--the world renowned Kimchi (cabbage that is smothered with crushed red pepper and garlic and then fermented in huge underground ceramic containers...it also comes in a "white" variety without the pepper paste, in several cubed radish varieties, and with other vegetables, such as cucumber).

Traditional Meals
Every meal (Breakfast, lunch and dinner) in a traditional Korean household and restaurant consists of Soup, Rice and Kimchi at the very least. There are usually other side dishes and a main dish as well, but these are like the three sisters of Korean food. The soups here are pretty spectacular, and very spicy. There is Kimchi-chi-gae, a kimchi stew...but you'd still have a kimchi side dish with this. Another popular one is Tone-chang-chi-gae, a soy bean paste soup with tofu and veggies, it also has meat or fish sometimes. It smells AWFUL, I don't know what to compare it to...like something died in a soiled gym bag and sat for a couple of days, but it tastes great! When we have it at school, the whole place stinks for a few hours; but we all know what we're having for lunch. The other widely eaten soup is kong-na-mul-guk which is bean sprout soup, it is supposed to be one of the soups good for hangovers (As the science teacher at my school says every single time we eat bean sprouts "they aspirate alcohol from the liver"--how he knows the word aspirate I have no idea). If one is hungover (as many Koreans are much of the time) there is another panaceal soup that i've never had. It is made out of fresh blood and veggies--oh so mashissoyo (delicious).... There are myriad other soups that i could describe but i don't really have the time, and you probably don't really care so here's a brief list: Ox bone soup, bulgogi soup, duck and sesame leaf stew, spicy egg, garlic shoot and zucchini soup.

Side dishes (pan-chan) vary from place to place, but you always have them, and at least one of them is a type of kimchi. Others include kongchaban (my favorite!)--soy beans fried in soy sauce and sesame seeds; pickled bean sprouts (kong-na-mul); kim (dried seaweed); little dried anchovies (meo-ol-chi); sliced octopus tentacles (nak-chi); pa-jon ("Korean Pizza" actually more like korean pancakes with green onion and other veggies in it); this weird jello stuff made from acorns (toto-ri-muk); pickled radish discs; hunks of fish (sometimes heads, guts, scales and all!), and many, many others. Some places will give you twelve side dishes between two people whereas others will just give kimchi and one or two other side dishes.

One major note: All of these things are shared by the whole table! Usually each person has a small plate/bowl thing to themselves, it is about the size and shape of an ash tray, and you can put food here if you want. Usually, though, we just pick up and eat directly from the dishes in the center of the table. The only thing that each person has to themselves is a little silver bowl of rice. Oh, and we often sit on the floor--we have to take our shoes off in the entryway of the restuarant.

For lunch and dinner there is usually some kind of protein involved in the form of tofu, seafood or meat. Us waeguks (foreigners) tend to stick with Bulgoggi, Galbi, and Sam-Gyeop-Sal. Bulgoggi means "Fire meat" and it is beef or pork, sometimes marinated, cooked on a grill in the middle of the table. Galbi means rib meat, and it is marinated as well--it is really tasty. Sam -gyeop-sal means "three stripes of fat pork" aka bacon with three strips of fat in it. It is different from American bacon though--it hasn't been cured so it's lacking the salt and delicious nitrates. All of these are ordered by the serving (app. 100-200g/serving) and the server brings out a plate of raw meat, some kitchen scissors and some tongs. You then throw this on the grill, wait for it to cook a bit, cut it up, wait for it to cook a bit more, then wrap it up in a piece of lettuce with a wedge of garlic, some red meat sauce stuff and whatever else you'd like in the wrap. It's extremely tasty, and surprisingly good for you. At these places we usually put some kimchi on the grill (helps cut the bitterness), as well as some of the garlic wedges. These meals are generally insanely cheap too--easily running less than 10 bucks per person for filling meal.

For a special treat for us Yeoju-ers, we go to the duck (Ori) restaurant--it is phenomenal, and if anyone makes it here I will treat you to a meal there for sure. You know how sometimes duck is too greasy? Well, it is perfect at this place--slow roasted on a spit over a wood fire. You can smell the place from about a block away and it is freaking amazing...you can order half or whole ducks that are brought to your table pre-sliced. You just give 'em a quick sizzle on the griddle and they're ready to go. It also comes with a delectible dipping sauce...mmmmm i want some right now...

Other entrees include tokk-galbi (rice cakes, chicken and cabbage grilled with spicy red sauce), bim-bim-bap (rice, bean sprouts, carrot shavings, dried seaweed, cucumber, red sauce, sesame oil and a poached/fried egg), kim bap (like a sushi roll), mandu (steamed dumplings, often in a soup, filled with either kimchi or pork). One, that sounds not so appetizing, is one if my favorites. It's called samething like Tolso-bap...something like that. It is very simple but pretty tasty. A very hot bowl filled with rice is placed in front of you and you are given an extra silver bowl. You fill the extra bowl with the rice from the super hot bowl. There should be some browned residual rice left in the really hot bowl, which is then filled with hot water and left to sit. The meal is eaten--rice, side dishes adn fish, and then the hot rice water finishes it all off. I really like it for some reason...it tastes good! it must have been some peasant food back in the day or something....All of these are cheap and delicious.

Not-So-Traditional Meals
Other things we often eat are Pizza (pretty damn good--sometimes has interesting toppings like crab and mayonaisse, potato wedges, and corn) and fried chicken (Koreans, to contradict the very healthy traditional food, have adopted some of the best frying techniques i've tasted). Pizza is one way to get cheese, which is sadly lacking in Korea (Thank you dad for the delicious, albeit expensive, shipment of chese in december!!). There are also street carts everywhere that serve corndogs, fried crab sticks, rice cakes on a stick, fried fish paste on a stick, tokkboki (rice cakes with red sauce and the fried fish paste all in one dish!), Fried dough filled with sweet black bean paste in the shape of fish, little tiny dough balls filled with black bean paste in the shape of walnuts, roasted sweet potatoes and fruits (right now clementines are everywhere).

In Seoul, one can eat just about anything from Bennigan's American cuisine to small greek restaurants, these places are pretty expensive though, so we rarely go. In Yeoju, we have a couple of japanese places (one with sushi and tempura another with Shabu Shabu), some chinese joints (they serve rice or noodles with this thick black soy bean reduction) and a pretty good Italian place (the man who works there is really cool--learned in italy, built his own brick oven). The rest are Korean, pizza and chicken. And last, but certainly not least, is everyone's college staple--Ramen Noodles. I have eaten far more here than I ever ate in college. To be fair though, they are much better in Korea than in the states--it is served in many restaurants as a matter of fact. Many Koreans will jazz up their ram-yon with fresh cut green onion and an egg.

Deserts, Snacks, Drinks
Koreans have major sweet tooth for sure. I've eaten more cake here than I would have ever eaten at home in the same amount of time. The cake is slightly different, a little less sweet and lighter--pretty good overall. Cake is eaten for so many celebrations--birthdays, new co workers, holidays, no school days, just for shits... Some of my fellow English teachers do not like the snacks here, but I, for one, find them delicious....maybe a little too delicious. I've noticed the kilograms slowly rising :( !! There are chips and crackers and candy and cookies...mmmm. Peppero sticks are the best. They are these long cookie sticks that are dipped in chocolate. November 11 is actually Peppero Day (because it looks like pepperos--11/11). It was definitely founded by Lotte, the makers of pepperos. There are also what i call Korean pringles...mmmmmm...

The only way I can get myself to not get the snacks is to tell myself that the excessive packaging, and the consequential waste from said packaging, is not worth the deliciousness. The wrapping of some of these things is just disgusting. Chocolate bars for example: usually it is a bag (think new hershey's bags) , inside the bag is a box, inside the box is a plastic container, inside the plastic container is the chocolate---much smaller than expected, and sometimes, if you're really really lucky, the chocolate inside the plastic container inside the box inside the bag is individually wrapped. So, to do a very small part for my floral and faunal friends (as well as the myriad people affected by excessive consumption of the industrial world) I abstain from most of these snacks. I thank my environmentalist side for keeping my thighs in line :)....although, as i type this, i am eating some cadbury chocolate, not much packaging, but shipped here from Australia...you win some you lose some i guess.

And as for drinks...I drink a lot of water, orange juice, and soy milk. I miss coffee, like real coffee. My school, as well as most eating establishments, have "coffee machines." These machines put about a shot of sugar, a shot of powdered cream, a couple grains of instant coffee and then enough ridiculously hot water to make it liquid....I think I get more of a sugar high from it than anything. The big sports drink in Korea is appetizingly called "Pocari Sweat," yup, sweat...it's pretty good though, not as sweet as gatorade and just as full of electrolytes. Another popular "drink" is this strange vitamin beverage...they come in small brown glass bottles and are apparently full of vitamin C or Ginseng or some other very important nutrient. They either taste like a whole bunch of smarties dissolved in water or like a medicine cabinet. I actually haven't had one in a while!

What else...Sometimes we get these pouches filled with "extracts" usually from something like pumpkins or onions or pears. They are okay, scary to drink though--you gotta cut open the pouch and try not to spill it everywhere---no straws like with capri suns. Of course, there is coke--and i do drink my fair share of it. It comes in the tall skinny cans, 250 mL. I think it tastes a little better too. The soy milk i drink is super good. It's found in most convenience stores, and is often kept warm in this little hot box thing that has canned coffee/tea/other drinks in it. There is one that is peanut flavored--yummy. There's also plain ol' milk, lots of juices (aloe juice is really good!), and any soda you could imagine.

So that's about it for my food issue, there are plenty of other foods and drinks to discuss, but this is long. I am leaving for vacation (to Thailand!!) tomorrow, so I will write when I return home. Links to some fun stuff are on the bottom of this e-mail, and please check out my blog if you haven't! I haven't updated in a while, but it's kind of fun: www.arexinkorearand.blogspot.com Peace and love to you all,
Alex

For some hiking pics click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506892&l=6bb73&id=8600337

Here are some Holiday pics (halloween, turkey day, etc):http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506853&l=62a6e&id=8600337

A four day retreat with the kiddies:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506790&l=8b465&id=8600337

And then there was Chicken University:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506743&l=a1a6a&id=8600337