pogoism

Settle down class. Today’s lesson is going to be about Korean food.

It seems like there are two different types of Korean food – one you get in the canteen, and one you get out in restaurants. Most of my Korean culinary experience comes from the former, so I’m not sure how accurate a portrayal of Korean cuisine this will be. But I’m going to blog about it anyway.

Food from the canteen can be categorized into one of a few different things:

1. Salty water with things floating in it.
2. Mashed up fish/meat/vegetables/fruit/tofu formed into perfect geometric shapes.
3. Jelly. It’s best not to probe further into what this “jelly” contains, so I haven’t.
4. Kimchi.
5. Rice. With every meal, and in copious amounts.

Though that doesn’t sound too appealing, some of it is actually quite nice. The typical Korean canteen meal is a buffet style affair, where you choose one menu (not sure why we have to do this, as I always mix-and-match anyway), then proceed to the food trolleys and fill your tray up with whatever you like. I’m getting pretty good at figuring out what has meat in it, but it’s still a little tricky sometimes. General rule: if you don’t know what it is, it’s probably best to steer clear.

Kimchi is probably my favourite bit of canteen food. It’s a traditional Korean dish, and you get it with almost every meal. It can be made out of a variety of vegetables, though from what I’ve eaten, the most popular seems to be baechu (Chinese cabbage). The cabbage is then spiced, seasoned and fermented. Yep, I know that sounds quite vile, but it’s actually very tasty. And don’t even get me started on kimchi pancakes… mmm… *drools*

Another yummy thing is the packets of salted seaweed strips you sometimes get at the canteen. You’re supposed to fill these with rice and eat. Again, sounds vile, but actually rather nice.

Anyway, that’s the canteen. I can eat most of the things in the canteen, so I don’t really need to worry to much. However, going out to eat is quite another story.

Vegetarians don’t exist in Korea. Well, maybe one or two. But they’re far from common. When you tell people you don’t eat meat the usual response is a blank, vacant stare that appears to say “does not compute”. Koreans love their meat.

One of the most popular type of places to go eat in Korea are restaurants that have barbeques built into the table. Then, you order as much meat (usually pork) as you like, and cook it yourself. This is, I imagine, heaven for most meat eaters. Not so great for veggies, but you can always have bibimbap – loads of different vegetables, rice all in a broth (hot or cold), topped off with an egg and hot sauce. Yummeh.

Generally though, the food here is really quite good. It’s very high in vegetables, which is why you don’t really see that many fat Koreans. Having said that, a walk around any downtown here and you’ll see the incredible Americanisation of Korea – Dunkin’ Donuts, Subway, Baskin Robbins are becoming more and more popular here.

The photo below is a good example of what I described about canteen food… Here we have vegetable dumpling, some Korean salad thing, Kimchi, some more Korean beansprout salad thing, and the hapseyo seaweed strips, and rice, of course. All washed down with some banana milk.