Flowers

Three flowers I saw today.

비빔밥

Ahh, bibimbop. I hate it. But it's pretty popular here, and I have a photo of it so here we are.

According to wikipedia, bibimbop means, "mixed meal." And as you can see, it's got a bunch of stuff in it. This bibimbop was served in a warm bowl. On the bottom of the bowl is rice. And then their is a ton of stuff jammed in there. You've got some huge mushrooms, carrots, and all kinds of greens. Lots of roots and stuff like that. And on the top you've got some beef, and topped off by a raw egg with sesame seeds. Also, a key component to bibimbop is red chili paste. I can't stand the red chili paste. Thankfully most times you can add your own paste to your bibimbop, so I can make it more palatable.

팥빙수

I'm going to blog about a different Korean food every week or more. This time, I'd like to talk about Paht-bing-soo.

Paht-bing-soo is a very popular Korean dessert. Two things seem to always be in paht-bing-soo. Shaved ice and red bean paste.

Red bean paste is, according to wikipedia, "prepared by boiling and mashing azuki beans and then sweetening the paste with sugar or honey. The husk of the beans may be removed by sieving before sweetening, which leads to a smoother and more homogeneous paste."


After that, recipes vary. I like the paht-bing-soo from Cafe Chai. I know, big surprise right? Well Chai adds a bit of ice cream to their paht-bing-soo. And there is also some 떡 (tteok). Tteok is, again thanks to wikipedia, "Korean cake made with glutinous rice flour (also known as sweet rice or chapssal), by steaming."

You can take a look at the photo below and see the yummy fruits that are added to paht-bing-soo at Chai.



Ahhh... 맛있네 (yummy).

Kimbop

Kimbop is my new favorite food. It is always made with two things. Kim. And bop. Kim is dried and seasoned seaweed. Bop is the Korean word for rice.

This here is from my favorite kimbop joint. It's chamchi kimbop. Or tuna kimbop. If you take a look you can see all kinds of stuff. Tuna, carrots, egg, ham, mayo. All this stuff, for 2 bucks.

Great Videos

If you're one of my friends back home,and you're wondering what it's like in Korea, you should watch this. If you're one of my Korean friends, you should watch this to see what Korea is like from the point of view of a foreigner.

What Did You Do This Weekend

So I asked my students what they did over the weekend, and I got an answer from a student that you will never hear back in Farwell.

The student, one of my favorites was telling me that she saw her grandmother over the weekend and had some very yummy food. So I asked her what it was and she said something in Korean that I didn't understand. Then about half the class gasped and said, "DOG!!!" One of the better English speakers let me know that the food this girl had that was so delicious was, in fact, dog.

So to answer your question, yes some Koreans do eat dog. But when they want to eat dog, they eat dog. You don't get an unsuspecting chunk of dog meat with your rice. You get dog if you want it.

Cultural differences are weird aren't they? IF you're interested you can read more about this on wikipedia.