Food, Glorious Food!

Another thing I’m frequently asked about is the food here in South Korea. A few things about the food: 1. In general, it IS spicy. While I’ve found that, most times, they try to achieve that “umami” thing for balance of flavors, whereby a dish has all the different flavors your tongue can distinguish (i.e. sweet, salty, bitter, sour), it’s also, oftentimes, spicy. The range can be mild to … hell, I don’t even know because I don’t eat stuff that spicy. Once my nose starts seriously running, I’m done. Suffice it to say, most foods here are spicy. However, I am a chicken when it comes to spice and I have found most of it really good and easy to eat. 2. Meals here tend to be seriously veggie rich. You will find veggies in practically EVERYTHING. And if it’s not IN a dish, most of the multitude of side dishes you get will be nothing but vegetables. 3. The side dishes…they’re called ‘banchan’ and there are a TON of them! They’re literally small bowls or plates of different things like spinach, bean sprouts, kimchi, veggie pancakes (jeon), a noodle dish (japchae), some greenery that looks like rosemary, but isn’t quite, salad, … the list could go on and on, trust me. Usually, the nicer the restaurant, or the bigger the occasion, the more banchan they serve. It can be quite a challenge not to fill up on the sides before the main dish is served! 4. Rice is served with EVERYTHING. I mean EVERYTHING. And if, by some small chance, you order something and rice is NOT served with it, you best believe it’s only because rice is IN it somewhere. And, 5. They don’t eat ‘breakfast’ foods here. Whatever you’d eat for lunch or dinner IS breakfast. No eggs, sausage (or GASP, BACON!), toast, etc. The traditional breakfast here is the exact same meal one would get at any other time of the day. You can buy breakfast foods (with varying degrees of difficulty), but don’t think you’re going to the local restaurant and getting an Eat ‘n’ Park kind of breakfast. Ummm, no.

That aside, I have to say I’m enjoying the food by and large. I tend to be greedy and adventurous (food-wise) anyway, so for those that know me well, it shouldn’t come as any surprise. I will try just about anything at least once. Just about. I’m thinking about that time in my local grocery store when the nice man that works there tried to offer me Beondegi, which is boiled and salted silk worm larvae. Hell to the no. It looked like a pot full of headless, legless roaches and it smelled like it looked. But I’ve eaten many other things I thought I would never put into my mouth and it’s usually been good. I’ve eaten blowfish, jellyfish, this dish consisting of baby anchovies, nuts, and honey (it’s good!), octopus, tofu, sundae – which is this sausage-shaped casing with noodles, liver and animal blood in it, chicken feet, and on and on. I know, I know…it all sounds disgusting, but most of it is pretty good. I didn’t like tofu and octopus when I tried them in the States, and I still don’t like them, no matter how many different ways I’ve had them served. And the ‘chicken feet’ incident (which it will now be called), couldn’t be helped because I had NO idea what I was ordering – all the menu said was chicken. I couldn’t get past the texture, I’m sorry … I tried.

Anyway, I suck at remembering to take pictures, but I have a few I’ve taken of some of the food I’ve eaten, and one I collected from a source on the internet. I hope you enjoy! J

 An ‘end of winter camp’ feast with my students: the dark, brownish/grey stuff is sundae, there is also gimbap (looks like sushi – not my fave), the orange stuff is doekk bokki, the green stuff towards the bottom is pajeon (green onion pancake), and the tan-ish stuff above the doekk bokki is mandu (dumplings stuffed with pork and veg.). Oh! And the bright yellow stuff sandwiched between the drinks is pickled daikon radish – not my fave, either. The other side of the table is the same stuff.

 Homemade doekk bokki (dense, chewy, rice cake cylinders in spicy sauce – I added onions too. It’s good stuff!)

                                         Left to right: sweet pumpkin, sweet & sour pork.

                     Top: kimchi, middle: japchae (glass noodles & veg), bottom: jellyfish and veg. Notice the silver   canisters? That's rice. Told ya!

 Center: steamed fish stew (mm mm good!), left of center: tofu studded with black sesame seeds, bottom: regular salad, top left: remnants of another salad, top right: I think that’s fried veggies.

Center: main dish of mixed seafood in spicy pepper sauce with bean sprouts (yes, there were whole shrimp in there, head and all!). 

A different pic of the banchan from a dinner I went to. Clockwise: kimchi, fried veg, sweet and sour pork.

Beondegi (I mean, REALLY??? UGH!) (Picture courtesy of http://www.streetbonersandtvcarnage.com)

One of my favorites: Sanji- a noodle dish (and I mean this is like a pound of pasta!) in a fishy broth topped with nori, green onions, spinach, sesame seeds, and kimchi. This is seriously good!

So, as you can see, I’m not starving. The next post will be a “School Lunch” edition. Aaah, school lunch! My favorite part of the day….

Take care, everyone!