Week 24 - 설날 - South Korea

TTEOKGUK

Happy Lunar New Year!

Today I'd like to write a bit about the Korean holiday of Seollal (the Korean Lunar New Year).  Like most of Asia, Korea celebrates not only the Solar New Year on January 1st but also (and with bigger celebrations) the Lunar New Year.  This year the Lunar New Year fell on February 10th, and since celebrations last for three days, that right near the end of the celebrations today.

Activities during Seollal are much like most holidays in the world - families get together, gifts are given, food is eaten and games are played.  What we're concerned with of course is the food.

On the first day of Seollal it is traditional for Koreans to dress in their Hanbok (traditional Korean attire, see picture of me to the right) and pay respect to their ancestors by bowing and presenting ritual foods.  After this they eat the traditional breakfast of Seollal, Tteokguk (rice cake soup).  Eating this soup is very important to the New Year proceedings as eating a bowl on New Year's morning is believed to add a year to your age.  It is so integral that a common New Year's greeting is, "How many servings of Tteokguk have you had?" (Having more than one bowl is actually common.)

Tteokguk was never a favourite of mine, probably because I couldn't wrap my head around the Korean Rice Cake.  Far different from the Western incarnation of a Rice Cake, Korean Tteok is actually made by pounding cooked rice into oblivion and then reforming it into solid shapes (kind of like an Asian pasta).  It's used for sweet and savoury dishes and is a common ingredient in Korean cuisine.  As for flavour, there really is none, it was the texture that got me.  I'm a big texture girl and Tteok is rubbery, gummy, and slippery all rolled into one.  Not my thing.

But lucky for my breakfast blog, Jon loves Tteokguk!  In fact, whenever we go for non-BBQ Korean food he orders Tteokmanduguk, which is just Tteokguk with Mandus (pork dumplings) thrown in for fun.

Tteokguk is made from a beef broth, boiled with tteok and features seaweed and egg as toppings.  For our feature on it we decided to go out (since I was not interested in having gallons of Tteokguk left-over...) to a classic kind of Korean establishment.  In Korea, you pick your restaurant by what you want to eat that night.  You want BBQ Beef, you go to the BBQ Beef restaurant, Pork, the Pork restaurant etc.  However in every town (and I mean probably every), there will be a cozy place that serves an assortment of cheap and cheerful Korean food.  Most dishes will be under 5000 won (or $5) and might include Kimbap (think Korean sushi), Ramen, Mandu, and an assortment of Guk (soup).  Our favourite haunt like this in Toronto is called Thumbs Ups and is pretty authentic, down to the dishware and the cute frilly aprons on the teenage boys serving.

I'm going to break my rules here and forgo the Verdict, because well, I didn't eat any soup. Oh no!  I didn't gain a year.  Ha ha!  Now Jon and I may finally be the same age.....

Instead please enjoy some pictures taken from our time in Korea around the holiday of Seollal (we visited the Korean Folk Village):

The following pictures were taken in Busan a couple of weeks into the New Year. The bonfire is celebrating Daeboreum, or the first full moon of the New Year.  When we waited in line to watch this we had no idea what we were in for.  The bonfire was extremely intense with ash and cinders flying all over the place.  The whole ceremony took several hours and included speeches from dignitaries, singing, some very beautiful traditional dancing, and much prayer and excitement when the Full Moon finally rose...

Thanks for indulging me in a little trip back to our wonderful time in Korea.

Next time, we'll see what's happening for breakfast in Italy!