FOOD!

November 8, 2015

EATING IN KOREA

Gopchang, pig intestines

Kimchi

Eating with chopsticks is only part of it...

In Korea, if you go to a restaurant or have a "traditional Korean dinner", you don't have a plate. The meal comes out on many different little plates or bowls. The bowls just keep coming. One lunch we had at a restaurant had about 30 bowls of different kinds of food. Some of the bowls are very small, but there are lots of courses and "side dishes".

A common drink is water with cooked rice in it. They cook the rice in lots of water, and when it's done they save the rice/water and serve it as a drink. Kimchi is served three times a day with every meal, or in between meals as a snack.  Korean women gather together as a family and make it in the autumn time when the cabbage is "good", then they store it in a special "kimchi refrigerator" all year, as it ferments. So everyone has a regular refrigerator, and a kimchi refrigerator. The kimchi can be made with different kinds of seasonings, and some of it is very spicy and hot, other kinds have a very strong garlic flavor, fishy flavor, or whatever.

Korean restaurant owners sometimes advertise their food specialty by putting pictures of the animal from which the meat comes on a sign outside of the restaurant. One sign had a picture of a pig, a duck, and a dog with a big arrow pointing to the restaurant. Another restaurant had pictures of a ferocious looking fish swimming around on the windows of the restaurant. We asked, "What kind of fish is that?" They said, "The kind that was in your soup".

The waiter brought these little skewers with something wrapped around them. It was sort of string-like and purple - baby octopus legs. Bryan tried to eat them but said they were too rubbery. The larger metal bowl has dried seaweed in it, some of the bowls have a vegetable you've never seen in a sauce - sometimes very spicy. When you think  you've had enough, they bring out more! This picture shows about half of the total.

Dessert is always tangerines. The fruit is delicious!