Archive for the 'Food and Drink' Category

Feb

Happy New Year!

Today is Seollal (설날), or Lunar New Year. It’s a time when Koreans travel to the homes where they grew up and celebrate the new year. In that way, it’s similar to Chuseok. They dress in Hanbok, the traditonal Korean dress. One traditional food eaten during Seollal is tteokguk, which is a soup with rice cakes. Although I didn’t have it this year, I did make it last year. A student’s mother gave me a number of packages of rice cakes as a gift.

One traditional activity is kite flying. I was wandering around Ulsan today, but I didn’t get to any of the parks. At least that’s where I assume people would be flying kites. Another tradition is called Sebae. Children show respect to their elders and wish them a happy new year by bowing deeply and saying “saehae bok manhi badeuseyo” which translates to “please receive many blessings in the new year”. Children are rewarded with money, usually in the form of brand new bills.

More information can be found at the following sites:

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Holidays,Home Life,Korean Vocabulary and have No Comments

Nov

Pepero Day 2009

Peperos Happy Pepero Day to all!

Pepero Day is celebrated here in South Korea by giving people “Peperos” (빼빼로). They are long skinny cookies sticks dipped in chocolate. Very yummy! If you’re a teacher, you usually end up with tons of them. Personally, I only eat Peperos on Pepero Day. By the time the tenth student offers them to you, you get pretty sick of them. Today, I actually got a hand dipped one. Not the bulk things that Lotte makes. It was dipped in chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. Boy was it good. So much better than the bulk ones. The best bulk ones are the ones that come in the green box. They have almonds in the chocolate.

I have a pile of these things sitting on my desk. I’ll probably throw some in the box I send home with Christmas gifts. The rest I’ll give out as treats to the kids, in moderation of course. The vast majority of my kids today were way high on sugar.

The legend is that Pepero Day started in Busan. A bunch of girls started exchanging the snack and wishing each other that they would become as tall and thin as a Pepero. Nice legend. But more likely it was started by the folks at Lotte who make Peperos. It’s a true Korean “Hallmark” holiday.

Pepero Day is always celebrated on November 11th. Why that day? When you write the date at 11/11, it looks like four Peperos standing side by side.

See Wikipedia (who else?) for more information and links.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Fun things and have No Comments

Oct

Songpyeon

In my post on Chuseok, I talked about songpyeon.

I was at Lotte Mart this afternoon doing my weekly grocery shopping. I was actually having a songpyeon craving. Does this mean I’ve been in Korea way too long for my own good? I don’t know.

So I bought a small package of them. The homemade ones (as provided by my students in the past) are better. But these were passible. There were white ones and green ones in the package. I’ve also eaten pink ones.

Songpyeon

The green ones had a very nutty filling. The white ones had a smoother, sweeter filling.

posted by Kathryn in Food and Drink,Home Life,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Pictures and have No Comments

Oct

Happy Chuseok!

Hello everyone! Today is 추석 (Chuseok). It’s basically the Korean Thanksgiving. It’s a festival celebrating the harvest. People usually travel to the cities and towns where older relatives live. Many of my students go to their grandparents’ house.

One traditional dish served on Chuseok is 송편 (Songpyeon). Songpyeon is a chewy rice cake (떡) filled with a sweet filling. My favorite kind had chesnuts and brown sugar in it. You can also get them with other fillings such as sweetened red beans.

For Chuseok, people wear 한복 (Hanbok). Hanbok is the traditional Korean clothings worn for special occassions. Wikipedia has a nice overview of the history of hanbok. By the way, that’s a long O and an A like in father. So it sounds more like hanboke. I said it incorrectly for a long time because of the weird Romanization of the word.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Korean Vocabulary,Off time and have No Comments

Aug

The Gingerbread Man

I just finished reading “The Gingerbread Man” with a group of my 1st graders. It’s one of my mini-traditions to have someone ship me gingerbread cookies/gingersnaps so my kids can taste them. I took some my Dad brought with him last Thursday. They were a big hit with the class. I passed out the left over cookies to the other teachers and random students who popped into our office.

It’s the little things like this that bring the stories alive. Plus it was a good way to make the kids behave all week because they were working toward a reward.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Food and Drink,Fun things,Language,Little Campus,Reading,Students,Teaching and have Comments (2)

Jun

Dalk-yachae-bokum-bap

Better known as cheesy rice. I get mine in a dalk-galbi restaurant in Shinae. It’s cheesy and meaty and spicy and just plain yummy. This time, I got beef instead of chicken. I’ve had similar dishes with seafood as well. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant off the top of my head, but it’s right above Loteria. It’s on the same road in Shinae as New Core Outlet is on. The Megabox movie theater is on that road as well.

You start off with some kimchi and the usual cabbage salad. The put the burner on under the big pan in the middle of the table. Once you order they bring out the food, which is cooked at your table. They start with some basic veggies. Once those are moving along well, they add the meat, spices and rice. That gets all nice and mixed together. To finish it up, they add the cheese, mozzarella in the case of this restaurant. Pair with a bottle of Coke, and you have a meal fit for a queen (or king as the case may be).

: Getting ready…

: Veggies cooking

: The meat, rice and cheese ready to go

: Meat cooking

: Ready to eat!

: It literally says “Co-ca Col-la” in Korean

posted by Kathryn in Food and Drink,Fun things,Home Life,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Off time,Pictures and have No Comments

May

Chon Dak

On Saturday, I went to Samson Dong for lunch. One of my favorite places to go is Chon Dak. I love their spicy chicken dish. It’s chicken, small rice cakes and vegetables in a spicy sauce. They top it with cheese, a hard boiled quail egg and a few shrimp.

They start off by giving you some pickled radishes and a cabbage salad. The dressing somewhat resembles French, but I highly doubt it is. The chicken comes with a bowl of rice.

One of the ladies who works in the kitchen speaks a little bit of English so we usually have a short chat. Between her limited English and my limited Korean, we get by ok.

Enjoy! Just don’t drool on your keyboard.