Differing opinions

Seems Oxford and I have different ideas about the meanings of certain words. Example:

jizz / n.
the characteristic impression given by an animal or plant.
[20th c.: origin unknown]

Eat, Drink and be Merry

First off, here's a random picture I took some random time in the past. It's taken from the north end of our campus, and about a fifteen minute walk down that road is the main gate of the university. Neither my house, nor my classrooms are anywhere near this vantage point.


Now then, getting back to food! Today was yet another culinary first! As some of you know, I've been teaching conversational English to a handful of professors for the better part of this year. About once a month we go out for coffee, lunch or dinner. Today it was for lunch, and the special dish was blowfish soup (복국). Yep, that's the fish that inflates into a spikey ball if it's disturbed, and the same fish that carries a pocket of deadly poison within its body (I know many of you have seen that Simpson's episode~!). Apparently those that prepare this fish require a special certification, which seems to make good sense.

So here's a picture of my current professor-students, from left: Professor Kim, Professor Park, Professor Kim and Professor Jung (Professor Kim couldn't make it today). You can see how the prevalence of certain last names in Korea can make things a little confusing at times.
You might also observe that we seem to be seated in a tiny room, at tables with tiny legs. These are two characteristics of Korean eating style. Often a restaurant (as in the case of the blowfish soup restaurant) is in fact a house, and divided into many smaller rooms. This gives a weird blend of intimacy and whatever the opposite of intimacy is. For example, if it's just you and your pals in a small room, it can create a great feeling of having a private party. However if your group is small, and another small group comes and sits very near you in a small room, it can feel a little strange at first. As far as the little tables go, much to the chagrin of chair-bound westerners, Koreans are a traditionally floor-sitting people. Nowadays of course there are equally as many restaurants with a chair area in addition to the floor area, or only chairs.


After lunch I headed over to the local Mega Mart to pick up a few things. As I passed by the liquor section (of course there's liqour in the grocery store, you stodgy Ontarians!) I was feeling adventurous and picked up a bottle of this stuff. Actually two bottles, as there was a two-for-one special today. If you look very closely it says 'WILD MOUNTAIN GINSENG WINE' at the upper left. Ginseng is a big thing over here, and though I don't regularly ingest the stuff, I find ginseng flavoured alcohols to be quite tasty. I liked the look of this bottle - a cross between medicinal and rustic peasant chique. Any guesses on the flavour? Well, distinctive ginseng notes with predominantly damp, musky forest overtones and a sweet aftertaste. Wow perhaps I should consider writing regular reviews of strange Korean liquors that come in small bottles - there certainly are plenty available!

Technical Notice

Due to some changes in the fabric of the web-o-sphere, pictures from earlier posts will be un-viewable till I get around to fixing them, which will hopefully happen within the week.

More eats

Recently, it seems that people have been asking me what I eat at home. I often can't really think of what I eat regularly, particulary since during the past few weeks I seem to have misplace my cooking mojo. It came back last week however, and here's what I had for lunch one day. I think that nowadays I often prepare Korean style meals, which roughly equates to a soup or stew, rice and side dishes.

I guess for those not familiar with Korean food, this meal looks a little strange, but I can assure you it's quite tasty. On the upper left is some lettuce with some kind of sesame sauce I bought at the store. In the white bowl is uh, anchovy stir fry (?) (멸치 볶음) which is flavoured with garlic, sweet chili paste and sesame. These little dried fishes are very common in Korean cuisine and I love them; I can happily eat them plain dipped in hot sauce, which is sometimes served as a snack alongside beer.
The big bowl at the top is, uh, seaweed salad (?). Again, seaweed of various types is a ubiquitous feature of Korean cooking and again, I'm quite fond of it. The stuff I made is from dried seaweed, which the English name is possibly laver (mi-yuk 미역) and I think the Japanese name is wakame. To round out the meal is a grilled little fish, a bowl of rice and some pork and kimchi soup.

A lot of foreigners who come to Korea never get into Korean food, which always surprises me a bit, though I guess on the scale of adventurous eating I am at the maximum end (I firmly subsrcibe to trying anything at least once). I guess perhaps a lot of the ingredients in Korean food seem strange (even scary??), such as the dried fish or seaweeds. But if one is willing to attempt new textures and flavours in food, there's no reason not to aquire a taste for some of these more 'exotic' ingredients. A lot of likes, dislikes, aversions and preferences for food are created by the mind anyway - for instance I am completely aware that the reason I'm hesitant to eat chicken feet is not there is inherently anything wrong with eating them, it's just that mentally the idea kind of grosses me out.

The fact remains that these 'weird' foods comprise basic elements of the diets of millions of Koreans as well as other East Asians - this stuff is not going to damage you! On the contrary, food such as dried anchovy and seaweed are incredibly nutritious - and less filling! What I mean by that is, when I eat a sizeable meal which consists of weird little sidedishes, a bowl of rice and stew, at the end of the meal I feel satiated without feeling stuffed. So part of the reason I enjoy Korean food, and is a general criterion of how I evaluate any meal, is not just for the taste, but how it makes me feel at the end of the meal.


Seaweed Salad

Reconstitute a SMALL amount of mi-yuk/dried laver/wakame in water. This stuff expands a LOT - beware!
Once softened, drain to rid it of excess water. Mix with a bit of good quality sesame oil (Korean sesame oil is best), salt to taste, a bit of mild vinegar (maybe cider or apple), crushed garlic to taste and some roasted sesame seeds. Delish!!!

Very belated post

Going through my files I came across these photos which I clearly had intended to post, oh, maybe last August. Anyway, here goes!!

In August, my friend Tanya came down from Seoul for the weekend. As it was plenty hot at that time, we headed out to some of the beaches in the Busan area. The first beach we visited is Songjeong beach, just a little bit outside of Busan. It's mainly a family beach, and here it is on a medium-busy day.
Here's a shot of some young people. Notice that several of them are almost fully dressed. This is quite a common occurence at beaches in the area, and I've never been able to figure out if it's due to modesty, or just a spontaneous decision to go swimming despite the lack of swim suits. In any case, it must make the bus ride home an uncomfortable ride.
After getting royally roasted at Songjeong beach, Tanya and I headed down to Haeundae beach, the most popular beach in Korea. This beach is for the younger crowd, and nowadays it is not uncommon to see young ladies strutting their stuff in bikinis, which in this very conservative country often still raises eyebrows. Here's Tanya and I resting in the shade.

Here's what the beach itself looks like - covered from end to end with colorful umbrellas.

Finally these young men got their picture taken due to their innovative head wear. Apparenlty the Princess Leia towel style sported by the fellow on the right was inspired by a character on a popular TV series. I thought it looked kind of funny.