Feasting in Korea

Travelling to Korea for two and half weeks of Lent, I knew that any fasting I may have tried to embark upon would have to come to an abrupt end, and my first meal there set the scene for what was to follow both in a culinary as well as a social sense. 

My wife, Yim Soon had flown out to Seoul a few days after the death of her mum on January 10th. She was going to remain there for the special ‘49th Day’ ceremony on February 28th and we’d decided that I would come out for that. On my first evening, Yim Soon found a buffet place run by a friendly woman who was clearly wondering who we were and where we had appeared from. Although South Korea has changed a lot since my first visit in 1992, when children used to point at me in the street and say, “Look, it’s an American!” foreigners are still a bit of a curiosity. We set about filling our (thankfully very large) plates with steaming rice and meat and pancakes and kimchi (the ubiquitous spicy pickle served with every meal, including breakfast) and a whole host of other treats. And as we got to work with our chopsticks, the woman brought over a couple of fried eggs she’d made specially for us. We would return to that place a few times and the woman would always give us something extra and have a bit of a chat as well.  

The gastronomic bar had been set high but was raised even higher a couple of days later when we were taken out for a meal in the centre of Seoul by an old friend and her son. Eating is very much a communal activity in Korea. There are a variety of little dishes on the table and everyone digs in together. Plus this was one of those barbeque restaurants where you cook your own meat in the middle of the table. When the meat is ready, you pop it onto a lettuce leaf, add a dollop of rice, a slice of garlic and a bit of chilli pepper; then smear it with chilli paste, wrap it up and put it in your mouth: having first taken a swig of soju, the Korean-style schnapps. For someone who grew up on a daily diet of potatoes, and whose soul food is toast and a cup of tea this is a pretty different way of eating.

Over the next few days, Yim Soon had planned for us four nights in Seoraksan, the mountainous area in the East where we’ve had some special moments over the years. We were allowed one free buffet breakfast in the hotel where we were staying and amongst the array of stuff on offer there was a little ‘Western’ section. There’s a great picture we sent to our children which shows Yim Soon’s plate full of rice and vegetables and kimchi and the like, and mine with toast and bacon and eggs. Everyone was a winner! Another special meal for me in Seoraksan was the bowl of makgeolli (rice wine) and pancake ‘snack’ we had one day after a bracing walk in the mountains. It was special partly because of the memories it held for me. On that first visit to the country in ’92 we’d gone to the mountains and had met on the path one day a company president who was taking a month off to walk. Down in a restaurant at the foot of the trail he had treated a group of hikers, including us, to makgeolli and pancakes. Ever since then, I associate rice wine and pancakes with walking in the mountains in Korea but also with that act of kindness, as it has always inspired me to try to be generous to people in a similar situation.

We were back in Seoul in time for the ‘49th Day’ celebration with Yim Soon’s family and part of that was, of course, a banquet of a meal. On that occasion it was the mother of all buffets, which even, to my delight, included a variety of deserts. From there, a group of us travelled to a hot spring resort for a couple of days and the amazing meals sort of blended into one another. Then one evening as the five of us sleeping in one room prepared to bed down on the floor for the night, an array of snacks was produced; just in case anyone was still a bit peckish! It brought to mind childhood holidays in Ireland. We’d be coming to the end of a day in which we’d been very amply fed and then a pot of tea and a large plate of soda bread would appear, accompanied by those immortal words, “Ah, go on!”

Our final trip was to the West Coast to see our friend, Sook Young. I’d told her that in Seoraksan the week before, I’d had a sudden urge one evening to eat chicken and chips but that the fried chicken restaurant we’d gone to had served us a pot of spicy chicken instead. Sook Young drove us to the sea, picking up food on the way, and we sat on the end of a pier watching the sun go down, eating fried chicken and chips and drinking beer.

It was back to trad. Korean fayre the day after when we were treated by some of Sook Young’s friends to lunch at a fish restaurant near the water’s edge. The table was completely filled with dishes, one of which contained octopus that was still wriggling! “Well,” I thought to myself, “when in Rome…”

The day before leaving for Korea, I’d done a ‘Pause for Thought’ on Radio 2. Ash Wednesday was the following day (and it was also the start of Ramadan) and the theme I’d been given was fasting. I’d mentioned that, much as I sort of like the idea of fasting, sometimes it’s hard to do it! I’d gone on to say that I remind myself that the first recorded miracle of Jesus was not the curing of the leper or the giving of sight to a blind person, important as these later miracles were. Rather it was turning water into wine at a wedding feast where the wine had run out. And it wasn’t just a few bottles; it was six huge containers, probably far more than would be needed. And it wasn’t just any old wine; it was the very best. I concluded that such a gesture speaks to me of a generous God who gives in abundance. 

I got to the end of my latest Korean adventure with a heart, and a stomach, that had truly been filled in abundance.