This week’s Monday post is about trying some ethnic food that I’ve never tried before! My daughter and son-in-law have a friend, “Nathan” who recently returned home from living in Korea for 18 months. While there, Nathan learned to eat, cook and appreciate some of the foods that are common to the people where he lived! When he returned to MN, he stayed with Casey and Tony until his apartment was ready.
One evening I ventured to their apartment to drop something off and happened to get there while Nathan was preparing a home cooked Korean meal for Casey and Tony. They insisted that I stay and give it a try…which made me very apprehensive, but I decided to go for it! I’m glad I did…hence more material for my blog!
The first dish (below) looked and was prepared similar to a stir fry. It was simply beef and vegetables with “kogi” sauce. (I’m probably murdering the spelling of the Korean words…forgive me!). The dish is called “bul kogi” which translated means “beef meat”. (Honestly, I was happy to hear that it was actually beef…if you know what I mean!). It was actually very tasty…much like any beef dish we might prepare.
This second dish was called “ho bac chung”. It was zucchini breaded and fried. It didn’t have a lot of flavor (how much flavor is packed in zucchini?) but it was good! It had a little different texture, which made it a little weird to eat, but other than that, it was OK!
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This next dish was like a Korean pancake called “pachon”. I’m not sure what was all in it…vegetables and some kind of breading. It was fairly tasty! Again, the thing that made it “different” was the texture. Think about if you would put vegetables in your pancakes…yah, “different”.
And then there was…
Yep. Seaweed. This is the one I “feared” the most, but also wanted to try the most. I mean, how many of you have actually eaten seaweed?
I was surprised at the texture, color and the way the seaweed was packaged. In my mind seaweed would come more like spinach or something like that. That’s what I imagined it would be like. But this seaweed was in very thin, “lacey”, flat and shiny pieces. Nathan showed us how it was usually eaten…one would pick up several squares of the seaweed with their hands, then with it grab a handful of rice, wrapping the seaweed around the rice and eating it like that. Of course Nathan had prepared rice (which was actually Korean rice, which was a little different from our rice. It was white, but puffier and very sticky, which is how they prepare it there! No wonder chopsticks are so much easier to use there than here! Everything sticks together for them! Anyway…) so I gave it the good ole’ Korean try (in very small doses, however). Since I had never had seaweed I was very excited to taste it (mostly to be able to say that “I’ve eaten seaweed”!). I imagined that it would taste kind of like the weeds that get washed up on the shore. You know how they have that “weedy, fishy” smell and makes the beach smell like that too? I’m sure you know what I’m talking about…if you’ve ever been to the ocean, or even to a lake. Anyway, that’s what I imagined seaweed to taste like…
And.
I. was. right.
I took two small pieces (that’s my plate on the right), but only ate one. Or, maybe half. It was all I needed to experience this new food. I did not enjoy it, but I am happy that I tried it, and that I can say, “yes, I’ve eaten seaweed”. One more item off my bucket list…
There was one more item Nathan served. (the little goldish looking food on the upper right corner of the picture below - between the rice and beef). This was something that Nathan said tasted much better when home made, but he did not know how to prepare it, so he bought some. It is called “Kimchee”. It is a cabbage dish that is very spicy (like “hot” spicy), and I enjoyed very much! I love spicy food (and I love cabbage as well), so this dish worked well for me! Interestingly, Nathan said that in Korea they do not use many spices…most of their flavor comes from using peppers. Kimchee had lots of peppers. I liked it!
And, this is Nathan. He was the chef that evening, and did a super great job! It was so fun to have this meal with him and hear about the customs and the ways the Korean people do things, prepare their foods, go about their days. He spent his time in Korea working in an orphanage and really experienced some amazing things as he observed and lived life with his new Korean friends.
It was a great evening for me and so much fun to experience this traditional Korean meal. I enjoyed it so much, especially because I’ve never done that…until now.
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