Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral

Animal, vegetable, or mineral? This is the question that often pops up in my mind as I start eating in Korea. Frequently I have no idea what the answer to that question is. Other things I cannot tell from looking at the food are whether it is going to be hot or if it possible to chew it in a timely manner. However that doesn�t stop me from trying, ever since that first weekend in Seoul.

I was walking around Namdaemon Shijang, the most famous market in Seoul. I was deeply in culture shock and my Korean friend was thoroughly enjoying my confusion. �What�s that, what�s that, what�s that,� I asked a hundred times. Each time she patiently explained to me what it was I was seeing. However, when it came to some of the foods, she seemed to take a special delight in my revulsion to some of the things I was seeing. It was as if she was thinking, �Oh you Americans are such wimps, you could never begin to imagine eating this. Go have a hamburger you big baby. � It was then and there that I decided that I would try everything in Korea, no matter how gross it was. Not only that, I vowed to myself, that I would try everything twice. Just to show them that I wasn�t just trying it to try it. I would it eat again to show them that I actually liked it. That would show them. It wasn�t long before I regretted my decision.

Koreans love squid and octopus and they do strange things to it like creating a snack that looks like a steam roller ran over it. It is shiny (my friend said they spray some chemical on it to make it shiny) and thin like a giant potato chip. I give it an 8 on the disgust meter, but like many things, when you get past the idea of what it is, it actually doesn�t taste too bad. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but my friend�s smirk should have warned me that there were worse things coming.

Of course, not everything was bad or disgusting. I found some great foods that I liked. One is called �hota� . It�s like a fat pancake with nuts and syrup inside. It is cooked fresh on a very hot grill as you order it. You have to be careful because the syrup is so hot, that if it touches your skin it will burn you. Strange though that it doesn�t burn the inside of your mouth. Then there was the candy that came in huge slabs that they shaved off with what looked like a wood planer. It was delicious. Also there is the Ddok. It�s made from smashed rice that is made into a playdo-type mixture. Inside they put a variety of fillings such as sweet black beans or sesame paste. Yum. Sometimes they just stew the ddok in a red sauce. I learned quickly that usually red means hot in Korea.

In the stalls on the streets you can see many things that look so strange. There is the ginseng that has that slightly bizarre obscene look about it. Mushrooms that look like they could be made out of plastic and are used for who know knows what. And the peppers. The peppers are everywhere. It�s what makes Korean food so distinctive and ,well, hot. Often on the street or in the strangest places you will see peppers set out to dry. There are the rice crackers that are sold everywhere and that people love to snack on. We went into a restaurant that specialized in naengmyon or cold noodle soup. As you may know, when you go to a Korean restaurant they bring you more than you order. They also bring little bowls each containing some different dish sometimes of uncertain origin. Of course kim chi, pickled cabbage, is present at every meal. The others are usually some kind of vegetable mixture. It seems like the healthiest diet in the world, other than the fact that there are not too many fruits. To my surprise, after the soup was brought out, a waitress came out with a scissors and started cutting up our noodles to make it easier for us to eat them. It was the first time that I had ever seen a pair of a scissors used in a restaurant or kitchen.

After walking around some more I saw something very strange looking and well I just had to ask. �Hey, what�s that�.

� Oh that. That�s bondegi, it was my favorite when I was young.� She gave me that funny half smile. It looked like a big bowl of brown nuts but of a kind I had never seen before.

I mustered my courage and heard myself say, � I want to try one�one bondegi., chuseyo (give me one please) � I gingerly picked one up with my fingers and looked at it. Upon closer inspection I was sure that it was not a nut but some kind of animal.

�Try it ,� she challenged. Defiantly I popped it in my mouth. It was crunchy and had a kind of smoky nutty taste.

�What exactly is it?� I asked. My friend consulted with the stall owner, then she consulted with her electronic dictionary for a while.

�Ralva.� , she finally triumphantly announced. �It�s a ralva.� I stopped and thought about what she said. Ralva. Ralva.

�Oh larva. You mean larva.�

� Yes, yes. from a worn, a silkworm. It�s a silkworn larvae.� I was so caught up in the excitement of the communication. It felt like we were playing charades. Then it hit me.

�What ! Larvae!! Silkworm. � I stood on the brink of spasming. Wouldn�t that be an entertainment for all the Koreans who were sneaking peeks at us by now.

I mustered all my will power attained through many years of practicing yoga and meditation and said quite calmy and convincingly, �Hmm not bad. May I have another. � My friend�s surprised face was compensation for the horror that my body was experiencing. I then knowingly ate a silkworm larvae.

�Would you like to buy a bag and we can snack on them on the way home? � I assured her that I was so full that I couldn�t. We continued walking around the market and saw many more interesting foods some that I could identify and many that I could not. Later that night we went out to a Korean restaurant and I had another chance to sample an unusual food. It was medahdahk. The best explanation of it that I could get was, �It�s something that grows on rocks in the sea.� It looked like a small disc-shaped date, about the size of a quarter. It was like trying chew leather. It just wouldn�t melt in my mouth. I kept chewing and chewing. Finally I was able to get it down. Then there was another delicacy. It is called keh (crab) not to be confused with keh (dog). The funny thing about this crab was that it was so small. It was about the size of a half dollar. There was no way to open it up and get the meat out. There was really only one way to eat it and that was to plop the whole thing in your mouth and crunch it up. It was in a spicy brown sauce and as much as I hated eating someone�s bones or should I say shell, I have to admit that it was quite tasty. I had another one just to for the heck of it. We washed that down with a rich milky brown liquid. I had never tasted anything like it.

"What is it,?� I asked timidly.

�Soup,� came the answer. �Bone soup.�

�mmmmm� I took one more spoonful and pushed it away. �It�s so delicious but I�m just full.� My hosts smiled in delight. Suddenly an image came to me. It was from the show Star Trek. Many times the Captain had to for one reason or another eat food with alien species. I felt like that. I was at a Klingon table bravely eating greglock or gagh and not giving those aliens the satisfaction of a laugh at my specie's expense. There was the time when Commander Reicher was eating with a bunch of aliens only they didn�t know he wasn�t an alien. They handed him something that I swear was bondegi except for the fact that it was still moving (probably special effects). Instead of eating it, Reicher threw it in their faces and made his getaway. I am proud to say that I was much braver than Reicher. I ate it not once but twice. I was really proud of that.

Korean people of course realize that the food they eat is , how shall I put it�different. They love to ask you what your favorite Korean food is. I think they derive some pleasure from the fact that many Westerners can�t stomach some of their food. I�ve read a number of books on Korean food put out by the tourist bureau. Funny they never mention bondegi. It harkens back to a time when Koreans were so poor that they had to eat �well ..worms. While many Koreans love it and it reminds them of their childhood, they are also a little embarrassed by it. For those reasons, whenever a Korean would ask me, I started to answer that my favorite food was bondegi.. It never failed to get an amazed response.

�What? Bondegi ! You like bondegi.?

And it�s even better if when I ask them and then they say, �No I don�t like it.� Suddenly I am superforeigner.

As a way of welcoming me to the staff of the university English department, the Korean faculty invited the English teachers to a very fancy Korean restaurant in downtown Daegan. It was very formal, yet I couldn�t resist answering when the Dean asked me what my favorite Korean food was. �Bondegi�, I replied. It got the expected reaction. The Korean teachers all gasped in amazement, some of them clapping. Just seconds later another cheer rose up. I spun around and my jaw dropped open because the waiter was bringing out a big steaming bowl of bondegi.

�Frank. You are so lucky. They have your favorite food. Here waiter, put it here in front of Frank. Now you can eat as much as you like. And there I was, trapped. It was either admit that I was a liar in front of my new employers and colleagues, or eat a bowl of silkworm larvae. Smiling, with all eyes on me I thought about Reicher and wondered what he would do, then I slowly picked one up (making sure it was not still moving) and popped it in my mouth. They watched every crunch until I swallowed and smiled around at each other. They were really proud of me. I picked up another and ate it and another and another and another until they stopped watching me eat bondegi. I ate 2/3rds of that bowl.

As we were finishing up the Dean leaned over and said, �Frank you love that bondegi so much why don�t you take it home. You can eat it for a snack before going to bed.� �.Right.

Let me finish by saying that though Korean is about the strangest that I have ever eaten, I am continuously amazed by the variety and the extreme healthfulness of this food. You don�t see many overweight people in Korea. That�s because much of their food is made up of greens and seaweed and other things that are so healthy it puts collard greens to shame. Everyday at the cafeteria and restaurant is an adventure for me and I love that.
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