No English Teacher Can Avoid This

Duk poki is all over the place. Everyone spells it differently in English. Kids eat it everyday. There are food stands where usually ladies are making it. Kids buy a dixie cup full of it with two toothpicks to eat it with.

When I first went to Korea I didn't like it. It was like no food I ever tasted. I didn't like the texture. I said to one English teacher that I didn't like the squishiness of it. (is that a word, guess not) Over time I guess it grew on me. 

Sometimes when I was hungry at work there was nothing easy to get except cookies or a drink from a grocery store or duk poki. Once during break time I asked a kid to buy it for me. He thought a minute and then said "Duk poki, my too" meaning he would get some too. 

Later on I hated seeing the school trash full of dixie cups with some duk poki sauce and the toothpicks. I know anyone working at a school or academy stressed over this. 

Korean Barbeque

It's all over. Almost every time I went out to eat with my friends or co-workers we went to a barbeque restaurant. Beef, pork, chicken, duck, ribs. Always with a lot of sides. Free refills of sides. Just pay for meat and drinks. Reasonable prices. 

It's very hard to be veg in Korea because almost every time Koreans go out to dinner they eat this. Sometimes they go to a sushi restaurant or a Chinese one. Occasionally they will try something totally different. 

Koreans call it special food but you can't call it that anymore. 

School Cafeteria Lunches

Pictured above is something called dongass or dongasu in Japan. It came from England long ago. It's a pork patty, breaded and either fried or cooked in the oven. It's a very common food. You see it in certain types of restaurants which could be called Korean fast food restaurants. It's usually served with a good helping of rice and a little pasta salad, coleslaw or kimchi. 

At the university where I worked dongass with rice and pasta,  cabbage salad was on the menu everyday. Usually the dongass has some brown sauce on it which I think is made from powder. I'm sorry to see it's such a common food now, it's not healthy. Many of the foods they eat especially fast foods like this aren't healthy. 
I went into my school cafeteria and looked at the menu to see ja-jang rice, rice with a dark brown sauce containing soy sauce, oil, bits of pork, small pieces of cabbage and onion. I ate the same thing the last time I went to the cafeteria and it was pretty good so I ordered it again. 

The cafeteria worker also gave me some chap-jae which are noodles made of I think buckwheat. These are always good though sometimes taste too oily. This foods are often seen in the cafeteria. Other common options are rice with curry sauce and rice with spicy sauce. There are always meat and vegetables in the sauce.

As I was eating it I was thinking about what it is made of. Cafeteria food in Korea like everywhere else probably is not as high quality as restaurant or home cooked food. But low price. That's the way it is. Not complaining about that. However, I started to think that this food is really not healthy. First, the sauce has a lot of oil. How much? I can't be sure. Then I thought that the sauce maybe comes from a package. I sometimes buy packages of curry or ja jang sauce which contain small pieces of meat and vegs, ready to heat up and mix with rice. I also wondered whether the sauce was originally a powder. I see in shops but don't buy powdered forms of curry or ja jang sauce.

I thought about how often Koreans and also Americans eat foods like this, packaged foods which come in boxes or bags and so on. I know there are preservatives and chemicals in the mix. Can you expect a cafeteria to make everything from scratch? Of course not.

One time I was eating there with a Korean friend and we had small bowls of spicy soup with our meals. When you looked at the soup there was a sheen on it which my friend said was caused by chemicals.

Next time I go there I think I'll eat kimbap which is made of rice probably cooked the same day, vegs, ham or tuna and seaweed. It seems a lot more natural. Even the french fries seem healthier. And maybe the duk polki, pieces of rice dough in spicy sauce which must have some chemicals. I'm thinking to do some research about this.

Greasy Mushroom Story

I've been thinking today that there really are a lot of pork products in Korea. Of course most types of Korean barbecue are pork. And each shop has spam as I wrote about before, you can see below. 

But also I think most supermarkets besides the smallest sell little packs of sausages, hot dogs, mini-hot dogs, etc. Today I bought a dollar pack of four small ones, looked like hot dogs, but I think were sausages to give to some stray cats. And I bought a pack for 1.50 which had five sausages a little bigger than the others. I used to go to the convenience store and buy one sausage around the size of a regular hot dog and have the staff heat it in their microwave. Then I ate it on bread with caesar salad dressing. Was very good. 

Today after eating two sausages in the pack I had a greasy taste in my mouth which I didn't like. After finishing the pack a bit later ( I was hungry) it since hasn't really bothered me but it's still there.

I distinctly recall Korean friends and acquaintances saying very plainly: "We don't like greasy food" or "Koreans don't like to eat greasy food." Well, considering the barbecue, the fried chicken, the sausages, the Korean-Chinese foods jja jja myun or tan su yook which are noodles in soy sauce and oil and breaded fried pieces of pork respectively.....it seems Koreans do like greasy foods. They like healthy and non-greasy ones also. As this point I really can't be totally sure of the amount of greasy foods the average Korean has in their diet. But I want to tell one story about it.

Once I ate with my students who were eating packed lunches from tupperware containers. One offered me one ordinary looking mushroom which I ate. After eating it - just one mushroom - I realized it was fried. I had an extremely greasy taste in my mouth. I chewed a piece of mint gum to try to get rid of the taste, then another and another. After 3 pieces of mint gum I hadn't gotten rid of it. By the way, I don't chew gum much and never chew 3 pieces in a short time. 

Next thing I remember I was outside going somewhere and was telling a friend about this. He asked why I didn't brush my teeth. Unfortunately I was out and couldn't. That's all I remember. 

All I can say is that was one greasy mushroom. I don't know how the kid's mother cooked it to make it that greasy. Perhaps she fried the mushrooms in a ton of oil. Seems like she just poured the oil directly onto it. If she had done that it would have been soggy I would've been able to tell by looking at it. Of course I don't think someone would prepare food that way, however, seems like that's what she did. 

Traditional Korean Foods

These are the most common traditional Korean food and foodstuffs: white rice, kimchi, soybean paste, soy sauce, red pepper sauce, noodles, cabbage, tofu, radish, green onions, onions, sweet potatoes, leeks, pears, apples, persimmons. Less common: bell peppers, carrots, white potatoes.

Koreans eat rice, kimchi, soybean paste, red pepper sauce daily. But they have supplemented their diet with a lot of other stuff. The traditional Korean diet is healthy, however the modern Korean diet is...well, good and bad.

Fried Chicken

I sometimes get a small booklet which is attached to my front door which is just restaurant ads which will deliver food. Almost all are pizza or chicken. Most of those are chicken. There must be fifteen chicken restaurants which will deliver to my door. Almost all have fried chicken and yang-nyum chicken which is chicken covered with a sweet and spicy sauce. Some advertise that they have grilled chicken which they say is more healthy. Some have barbecue. There are a few other types but the most commonly ordered one is fried. For about 15 bucks you can get a box of fried chicken, some packets of mustard to put on it, some fermented radish cubes and a bottle of Coke. It's a great food for families or college students. Families eat this at home while students often eat it outside at picnic tables which are set up around convenience stores. Of course they have alcohol with theirs.

I had the good fortune to go to a festival last week. Many who were there ordered pizza and chicken and ate on the festival grounds.

One Food You Would Never Guess

In all supermarkets, I've seen it even in the smallest ones, you will find: SPAM.

It's hard to believe that Koreans would eat this if you don't know the story of why they eat it. It comes from the US military. My Korean friend told me that during the Korean War US soldiers would sometimes throw out spam. He didn't say if they threw out cans they didn't want or if they threw out pieces of leftover spam. Koreans who mostly poor at that time took it. There were a lot of refugees then who likely ate anything they could.

Before a holiday in Korea you will see in the shops gift sets which people can buy and give to others. Some sets have food products such as cooking oil. Some have spam and other products, and some have only spam. It's called a "Spam Set."

They make a stew which I was told is called military stew. It's just kimchi stew with pieces of spam. Kimchi stew is just as I can see kimchi and water with a few pieces of meat which are just plain pork. Actually these stews are very good but very spicy.