North Korean Food

When we visited South Korea last summer, Jong Hoon took us to a restaurant in a trendy area of Seoul, renowned for serving typical food of neighbouring North Korea. 

The venue was decorated with some old maps and watercolour paintings and there was an area where you could sit at a table using ‘normal’ chairs and another area where you could try the traditional way, sitting on cushions around a very low table.

a humble bowl of rice

sitting at a traditional low table

Manners and protocol are very important in Korean tradition, each person has an assigned place at the table. But I think JH was very kind to us and he spared the protocol, so we could eat in a manner that we were more comfortable, particularly the younger ones (although I must admit their chopstick skills are far better than mine!) The waitress brought in the food, which was delicious. First she served small dishes with different types of kimchee. Then the bulgogi appeared, a hot-pot type of dish, with grilled beef that is then wrapped in lettuce leaves. She kept coming back with a big kettle to pour stock (or broth) into the bulgogi pot.

Menu

Bae Chu Kimchi – cabbage kimchee - 배추김치

Do Rah Ji (it is a vegetable, it is not a fish!) - 도라지

Ah mook Jo Rim - fried fish cake - 어묵조림

Moo Moo Chim - radish kimchee - 무 무침

Dong Chi Mi - radish water kimchee - 동치미 –

Bulgogi – beef with soy sauce  - 불고기

Kimchee Man Doo Jeon Gol  - Kimchee dumpling stew - 김치만두전골 –  

How to make (according to Jong Hoon)

Bulgogi: boil soya sauce for a couple of hours with vegetables, garlic and pepper ; cool down and marinate the beef for 3 to four hours, then serve as hot pot. Use beef stock for replenishing the hot-pot

bulgogi grilling/stewing away in the hot pot 

Kimchee Man Doo Jeon Gol: there is kimchee inside the dumpling, with meatballs and rice cakes

kimchee man doo jeon gol

my bowl of kimchee man doo jeon gol

kimchee cabbage

lettuce and bean paste to wrap the bugolgi grilled beef

kimchee vegetable (at first, I thought it was fish!)

kimchee white radish

more kimchee

beautiful bowl of rice

Later on, I found out that Koreans don’t serve their own drinks, but they pour each other drinks as a sign of politeness. The eldest eats first and nobody can touch their chopsticks before the eldest.

It was a lovely evening! After the restaurant we went for a walk around the area to admire the beautiful traditional Korean wooden houses.

If you want to read more about our trip to South Korea, check out this blog post about 'People Watching in Bussan Beach' (here)

Have You Eaten Yet?

Food in China is so ingrained in the cultural psyche that people greet each other by saying "Have You Eaten Yet? - Ni chi le ma?" - 你吃了嗎?

Eating, drinking, food and all that goes with it, is indeed a very important part of everybody's life - wherever you go in the world. Some people may get the impression that there are so-called 'foodies' popping up all over the place and may even believe that new food blogs reviewing restaurants, testing recipes and showing off culinary tips are just a fad. But in fact, this is not a new phenomenon: people have been interested in food and have been writing about it since time immemorial. Perhaps now we notice more because of the widespread reach enabled by the internet, globalisation, social media, TV and radio programmes.

Animal Farm - a Chinese interpretation

I've been living in China for the last three years and I have been very lucky to try foods from different regions of this humongous country. I've taken lessons, watched TV programmes and read lots of books. But I've also been travelling around quite a bit, like a diplomatic bag. Add to that a colourful culinary background - from South American to English, passing through Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, South-east Asian and a little bit of sugarcraft, cake making and decorating, you can imagine I have a handful of things I would like to share.

So allow me to indulge myself and join the masses, by starting yet another blog about food. I was hoping to create something new, beautiful and inspiring, but real life is not always like that, and if I am going to stop procrastinating, I will just do it, with whatever images I can make, even if they are not perfect, photographically speaking.

I have always enjoyed food, but not always been a good cook. Although you don't need to be able to cook to enjoy food, I am convinced that knowing how to prepare gravy from scratch, to roll a crisp shortcrust pastry, to stir-fry gong bao chicken in stages and to roast beef to Argentine perfection takes food appreciation to a higher level.

I will confess then, that I only learnt how to cook when I met my husband and we went to live in Iran. Armed with my two bibles: Delia Smith and Doña Petrona, I then added Claudia Roden and a whole list of other authors in order to discover ingredients I had never seen before, whose names were totally unfamiliar and tasted odd or weird to this girl from the 'arrabal' of  Buenos Aires. But I adapted and survived - most importantly, my husband survived. And I have been cooking, testing, learning and enjoying ever since.  I am very glad to say that the best meals we've had have always been at family and friends' homes, prepared with love, care and generosity and shared with all our hearts.

Welcome to my food blog and thank you for stopping by.