by Chris Tharp
“Oh! You Can Use the Chopsticks Very Well!”
Sit down to eat for the first time with most any local in Korea, and these will be among the first words out of their mouth. It doesn’t matter if they know that you’ve been in the country for years; it doesn’t matter if you can even speak the language passably; it doesn’t matter if you tell them that your home country is full of Asian restaurants with chopsticks piled on every table. Koreans somehow feel compelled to compliment us foreigners on our chopstick use, as if we’ve mastered the art of juggling or just played an intricate composition on the violin. Perhaps it’s because they view us as big clumsy brutes, and effective chopstick use runs counter to this widely held belief. Or maybe it has something more to do with their cuisine: if we can wield chopsticks with dexterity, then perhaps we can begin to peel away the layers of their ancient and mysterious culinary ways. I don’t think that anyone can really understand a culture without delving deeply into its food, and suspect that many Koreans also hold this view.
I love Korean food–I really do. My time on the peninsula has given me a great deal of respect for the local cuisine: it’s delicious and healthy and extraordinarily varied. The idea of mining an almost completely unknown cuisine was one of the things that excited me most about coming here. Upon arrival I dove into straight in, plunging headfirst into another world of eating, wholeheartedly embracing a cooking culture that employs fermented bean and red pepper pastes, bizarre and be-tentacled sea creatures, salt water weeds, grilled meats, fish of all stripes, and an array of vegetable side dishes that could confuse even the most hardened vegan. However, I soon discovered that not all foreigners can eat like Koreans. Many Westerners can never get over the otherness of the cuisine. I’ve seen countless teachers arrive in Korea only to be intimidated by the seemingly strange food choices. Sometimes it’s just the prevalence of seafood that puts them off (there are a lot of folks who have a bizarre, overriding hatred of all fish); for others, it’s the pungent, spicy pastes and hot peppers that Koreans love to liberally apply to many of their best-known dishes. As a result, many of these foreign folks eschew the cheap and fresh food available to them anywhere in the country in favor of a diet of pasta, pizza, and various pub and fast foods, which, in modern, capitalist Korea, can be found everywhere. This reliance on comfortable, stodgy, known-quantities results in one thing only: fat, and lots of it. I’ve seen Western English teachers come to the country for just a year and seriously hef out, which is the opposite of what really should be going on. Look at the locals: most of them are thin. Have you ever stopped to think as to why that may be? Comedian Brian Aylward puts it like this:
“I like watching other expats at the food markets in Asia. They seem confused as to what kind of foods they are looking at. One of these days, I am just going to lean in toward them and say, They’re called vegetables, you fat fuck.”
While Korean food’s profile has risen in recent years, it still occupies a pretty obscure place compared with the popularity of other Asian cuisine, such as Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai. Most foreigners, when pressed, probably could not even name two Korean dishes. Sure, many people do know of kimchee, but after that the drop-off is massive. Someone may utter something about Korean barbecue, but what exactly does that even mean, other than that some meat gets roasted over coals?
Kimchee, of course, is king. It is the central component to all Korean meals. It is eaten at most every sitting, and it binds Korean people together more than any other food. Korean people are proud of kimchee, and in some ways it perfectly represents the Korean character: spicy, sour, strong, unique, and difficult for outsiders to really fathom. It’s the one thing from their cuisine that they can claim to be really theirs. While other cultures of the world have sundry variations on pickled veggies and cabbage, no one has quite pushed it up to the levels of the Koreans, who have taken a traditional staple of their diet and elevated it to the level of national identity. To eat kimchee is to be Korean. To go without is to deprive yourself of a deep, cultural birthright. We see this when Koreans travel. More often than not, they pack kimchee to take along with them, as if leaving it at home would weaken them somehow. After all, kimchee is power. You see it and smell it everywhere in Korea–from the street markets and restaurants to the breath of the ajosshis on the late-night trains.
I tried kimchee my first night in the country and was hooked right away, relishing its sour, spicy taste. I took to it immediately, which seems to be how it goes. One either likes it from the outset or hates it forever. This split, among foreigners, is about fifty-fifty. Scouser Stu, an English friend who lived in Busan, hates kimchee so much that he expressed his dislike through his adopted Korean name, which, when spelled out in Hangul, reads Kim Chi–no.
Aside from being a physical embodiment of Korean-ness, kimchee is touted as a kind of health panacea by many of the Great Han People. Koreans claim that kimchee aids in digestion (which I am inclined to believe, based on my own experience–my once-chronic heartburn all but disappeared after moving here). Many even go so far as to put forth that it guards against serious sickness. During the SARS scare of 2003, not one case of the disease popped up on the peninsula. Koreans were quick to point out that regular and mighty consumption of their beloved fermented cabbage kept them safe. While many of us foreigners roll our eyes at such claims, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to credit kimchee as being an overall healthy food.
“Can You Eat the Spicy Food?”
Before complimenting you on your chopstick proficiency, most any Korean will likely ask you this when you sit down at the table. Koreans are convinced that their food is among the spiciest in the world–ignited rocket fuel, to the Western palate–which really isn’t true at all. This isn’t to say their food is bland. Koreans love garlic, onions, and peppers of all kinds. They also smother many of their dishes with an omnipresent red pepper paste known as gochujang. So yes, many dishes pack some heat, but not to the atomic extent that the majority of Koreans seem to be convinced. The hottest of Korean dishes could never compete with those from Thailand or India or even the provinces of central and southern China, such as Hunan and Sichuan. Yet Koreans often are incredulous as to any Westerner’s ability to handle the spice of their food. Often, when dining with Korean friends, I’ll order a dish, only to have the Korean server turn to my friend, and with raised eyebrows, ask them if they’re sure I can take it. I’ve heard stories of foreigners being straight-up refused some dishes out of fear that it will be too hot for them to tolerate, despite repeated attempts to order. Sometimes this may be true, and Koreans are only looking out for their guest’s comfort when they kick up such fusses, but, in the end, Korean food is nowhere near the top tier in terms of spiciness. The fact that most Korean people are totally ignorant of other Asian cuisines helps explain this gap in knowledge. Koreans eat and know their own food. Ask them to describe their favorite dishes from other Asian countries, and the list will be quite short. Many will just draw a blank and shake their heads.
That said, one of Korea’s spiciest dishes did kick (and later burn) my ass when I first arrived. On my second night in the country, alone, I took a wander through the little market across the street from my new apartment, hoping to stumble upon something good and local and be surprised. In this I succeeded, walking a up to a second-story restaurant that had a picture of a cute little octopus on its sign, letting even those of us illiterate in Korean know what was on the menu. Business owners are fond of cartoonish representations of the meat served: if a restaurant specializes in steamed pork, more often than not the sign will feature a happy little fat pig that appears to be dancing or giving a thumbs-up sign; a spicy chicken joint may feature a flamboyant-looking rooster. I ascended the stairs, entered the octopus place, sat down on the floor and waited. I was soon approached by an apron-clad ajumma, who I presumed asked me what I wanted to eat, as my Korean then was as about as good as my Esperanto is now. I proceeded to randomly point at the first selection on the wall me
nu and signaled for a beer, as well. It was early August and I was overheated from the walk up the stairs. Soon I was presented with a pan full of baby octopus, onions, and glass noodles, all of which were covered with glistening red gochujang, and cooked over a gas flame at my table. Along with this was a collection of side dishes containing kimchee, radish, black beans, green cabbage, peanuts, and quail eggs. Once the spicy octopus was ready I dug in, ladling the bubbling goodness over a bowl of white rice and stuffing spoonfuls into my mouth, which, when looking around at the other patrons in the room, seemed to be the right way to go about it: Koreans eat rice with spoons, and never raise the bowl off of the table, unlike their troublesome neighbors, those uncouth and hated Japanese.
As I greedily ate in the thick summer heat, the pepper paste hit my system and I began to sweat like a fat guy in a sauna. My face was deep red and the front of my button-up shirt became drenched with sweat, which also beaded up on my forehead and dripped from my chin into my rice bowl. I was in serious meltdown mode, and the only thing to mitigate it was swigs from the small glass of cold Hite beer.
When I looked up, I discovered that all eyes in the restaurant were on me. The other patrons–a couple of families and groups of men eating and drinking together–stared my way with huge smiles, waving their hands to their lips as if to say, “Spicy, ain’t it?” As I turned, I saw that the kitchen had emptied out and the women working there were now all looking my way as well. When I caught their eyes, they erupted in full laughter, deeply tickled to see this big white guy turning blistering crimson and secreting every bit of sweat in his system. They laughed and laughed and laughed, convinced of the spicy power of their food, satisfied that they had done their job. I shrugged, wiped my face, drank from the cool beer and laughed along, knowing that I looked ridiculous, but despite this, felt great. This meal was a true novelty, unlike anything I’d eaten before. It was waking me up, and to this day, spicy octopus–or nakji bokkum–continues to be one of my favorite Korean dishes.
Other than kimchee, the one Korean cuisine that is well-known beyond the shores of the peninsula is their barbecue. In big cities throughout North America, Korean grilled meat joints have popped up, adding to the variety of other Asian foods readily available in these urban centers. Korean barbecue is delicious: there’s meat, coals, and a grill. You can’t really go wrong. It’s also a lot of fun–a communal and interactive way to share a meal. After all, the food cooks right there at the table. Everyone helps themselves, and the group is bonded by the literal flame in the center. It’s a terrific way to eat and it’s really no mystery why it’s the one Korean cuisine that has caught on.
Of course barbecue–or suk bul–is even more popular at home than abroad. Meat restaurants are everywhere in Korea, and when walking at night you are often hit with the smoky aroma of grilling pork or beef. In warm weather, tables are set up out in the open air, and customers will sit for hours, picking at the small pieces of fired meat, eating from the numerous side dishes, and of course, drinking.
This barbecued food, while closely identified with Korea internationally, really isn’t traditional cuisine by any stretch of the imagination. Up until the mid-‘60s, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, on par with such places as Sudan and Bangladesh. Meat is a treasured commodity in any impoverished country, and Korea was no exception. Eating grilled meat as a main dish was considered an extreme luxury, reserved for the rich or for very special occasions. It wasn’t until the last thirty years that Koreans have had the disposable income to blow on pure meat dinners. So to think of suk bul as “real” Korean food is to give it a bit too much credit.
Korean food encompasses a lot of things, but if you were to choose one thing other than kimchee that binds it all together, without a doubt it would be soup. Korean food is all about soup–especially kimchee and dwoenjang (bean paste) jjigae. It makes sense that soup is the centerpiece of almost all Korean meals. Up until recently Korea was dirt-poor, and poor people eat soup: you just take whatever ingredients are available, boil them in water, and serve with rice, if you have any. Soup is efficient: it’s a way to feed everyone and waste nothing. It’s also a good way to keep warm in the frigid, windy winters of the Korean Peninsula.
“Do You Like the Korean Rice Cake?”
Deok is the Korean word for rice cake, which is the nation’s most treasured traditional snack. What is a rice cake? Well, it’s not really cake at all, since no baking is involved. Deok is just sticky rice that is pounded with a wooden mallet into a thick, gooey mass. It is then stuffed with sweet beans or covered with various sweeteners to make it more cakey, I suppose. Koreans love deok. To them it is a treasured thing that reminds them of their past. When they eat deok, they think about their grandmother and the delicious deok that she used to make. Like kimchee, Koreans are proud of their deok. They are so proud that they thrust it on unsuspecting foreigners with alarming frequency. If you come to Korea, prepare to be regularly ambushed with deok.
Koreans often fail to comprehend that many foreigners don’t like deok. We don’t hate it, either. In fact, it’s hard to have any strong feelings either way, when it comes to deok. It’s like eating concentrated apathy. And it’s always served up at official settings: in your boss’s office, or at the home of a particularly lucrative private tutoring lesson. There it is, splayed out in huge slices, looking and tasting like a Nerf football carved up into eighths. But you have to eat at least one piece, choking it down and chewing on it for eternity, all the while faking a smile and nodding to your boss or the parents of the child whom you teach for heaps of money. They smile back and you keep up with the charade. Such is life here.
Deok is so traditional and festive that to hate on it is almost culturally disrespectful. Koreans have a great love for their rice cakes and you don’t want to hurt their feelings, but sometimes the line must be drawn, sometimes you have to put a stop to it. I was recently teaching a class of housewives at my college. Several of the students had taken to regularly bringing me large slabs of deok, which I politely accepted for a couple of months. But the deok just kept coming and coming, and finally, in the gentlest manner I could muster, I confessed to not much liking it. These lovely women were shocked and horrified, as if a neutron bomb had just sucked all the air out of the room… or one of them had discovered my secret trove of barnyard porn.
In the end I’ve made my peace with deok. I smile and take it down; I pretend to savor it. This isn’t hard to do, really, and is my burden as a guest in this country. Appreciation of deok is appreciated in turn. There are certainly worse foods foisted upon unsuspecting foreigners on the peninsula, and sometimes, just sometimes, I actually like the stuff.
Sunday Morning at Gupo
It was Sam’s idea, and it sounded like a good one, at least four beers into a Saturday night down at the Crown. Thoughts of my father were gnawing on my insides and, despite the fact that I'd be home soon, I attempted to soothe them with lager.
“Dude, let’s go to the dog market tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s descend into the belly of the beast. Haven’t you always been curious about it?”
“Sure. But part of me is afraid.”
“That’s exactly why you should go.”
Koreans, like people in many other Asian countries, do, from time to time, eat dogs. You don’t have to look to hard to find little family run restaurants serving up boshintang, the spicy dog meat soup renowned for its health properties… one of which is its purported effect on what’s known as stamina. It is for this latter reason that boshintang is almost exclusively eaten by middle-aged and older men. Increasingly, young Koreans balk at the idea of dog-eating, and the government–in periodic attempts to avoid the condemnation of more canine-sympathetic foreigners–has even tried to curb the practice. But it is out there. It is part of the culture, and I, for one, am not about to wave my scolding finger at either the patrons or the purveyors.
So the next m
orning Sam and I boarded the subway and rode it to the other side of town. Our heads were hissing from the vat’s worth of cheap beer we had downed the night before. We sipped from big paper cups of Starbucks coffee and said nothing, preparing ourselves for the upcoming encounter. We had both been in the country for two years at this point and had yet to visit the dog market. The time had come.
By the time we got out of the subway, I was officially starving. The coffee I had for breakfast was boring a hole in my stomach lining. Sam was in similar shape, so we decided that before we headed into the catacombs of the market, we’d grab a bite to fuel us for what was to come. The Gupo Market is not just a dog market. It is massive and comprehensive, selling fruit and vegetables, fish, pork, chicken, meat, household necessities, spices, rice, clothing, and hardware items. But Sam and I had no time to duck into one of the market’s restaurants. We had come for dog, and we found it straightaway. The first thing that clued me in was the bark and yelp of a dog, echoing up the side street on which we found ourselves.
