People in the Paleolithic usually picked wild fruits and hunted animals and fish for food. Since the Neolithic, people have been engaged in farming, growing grains and making pottery to store food. In the Bronze Age, people began to grow more crops: rice and beans were planted and cultivated. In the following Iron Age, due to the use of iron tools, the output of crops increased by leaps and bounds. In the Three Kingdoms period, because Koguryo people liked to eat meat, Baekje and Silla people developed wine-making and sauce-making techniques.
Koreans, like Japanese, are used to sitting on the floor and eating cross-legged. Its traditional diet is relatively simple, the staple food is rice, and it loves to eat kimchi. The export volume of kimchi is said to be the highest in the world, and I think it can win the championship because every meal has its own table, and many tricks can be put on the exquisite dishes: cabbage, radish, pepper, and what we call unknown, which are both appetizing and delicious. They obviously have more vegetarian dishes on the table than we do, because they are near the sea, and there are quite a few vegetarian seafood dishes. Another "multi" is sauce products. The influence of our "sauce jar culture" there has probably reached the point where "green is better than blue". They have a sauce specially used to mix vegetables with rice. I tried it and it tastes very good. The above "three excesses" may constitute a reasonable factor that their diet is low in sugar and fat and meets the requirements of nutrition. We have noticed that there are not many obese people in Korea. Generally, middle-aged and elderly people can keep fit and have a healthy complexion. Is this related to good eating habits?
In the Koryo era, influenced by Buddhism, meat declined because killing was forbidden. And only wine cakes, noodles, salt and tea can be made in the temple. In the late Koryo period, Mongolian troops invaded, and the signs of meat also followed. Beef offal soup, sausage and tauren cuisine gradually spread. Soju also spread widely from their stationed areas. In this way, the alternate consumption of meat and vegetarian food in this period has evolved into today's diet.
The saving and science of Korean food can also be proved by a kind of "miniature paper cup" specially used for drinking fountains. It is a small piece of paper that is only the length of the middle finger and the width of two fingers. After special treatment, it becomes a very small cup when you take it and put it on the tap to receive water. Compared with transparent plastic cups and ordinary paper cups, it has its own tiny and simple advantages, which will be often seen in Korean streets and fast food restaurants.
I'm afraid the most famous Korean food is barbecue. Teppanyaki is not only used for cooking, but also for fried noodles. The most interesting thing is a kind of "stone barbecue": put a pile of pebbles on an iron frame to heat up, spread the meat pieces first, and then twist the large pieces of meat into small pieces with long scissors when the temperature is certain, and put them into rolling stones, and soon they will creak and emit fragrance. According to reports, pebbles are imported, since they can store heat and even the temperature, so that the meat is free from scorching, and the oil can be removed and the smell can be removed.
Korea's climate is similar to that of the ocean, but what is not simple is that the ocean climate is really the unique climate that forms Korea's unique human geography, and of course it also has its own unique and delicious traditional food. Here are four kinds of traditional representative foods with several characteristics in Korea.
Flower muffin: Good in color and fragrance
The name "muffin" comes from spreading a layer of pine needles on the steamer to prevent cakes from sticking to the drawer. Flower muffins are made of flowers and birds after being dyed with natural colors such as seeds, carrots and pumpkins. That is to say, flowers, leaves, birds and so on are made from colored rice dough and pasted on the cake, so that the cake has both faint rosin and colorful, fragrant and beautiful.
During the Korean period, there were many kinds of food called "muffins of various colors" at court banquets. Apart from ordinary muffins filled with beans, dates and chestnuts, there were also "stuffed muffins" filled with water celery, mushrooms, minced stone, chicken and other meat and vegetables.
taro soup: a must-have food for Mid-Autumn Festival
If Mid-Autumn Festival food is different from ancestor worship food and other seasonal foods during the Spring Festival, the most representative food is taro soup. Because taro soup is harvested around the Mid-Autumn Festival, it can only be tasted in the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is rich in food, so it's easy to overeat, but as long as you eat taro soup, you won't delay eating or have diarrhea. Taro is an alkaline food and rich in cellulose, which not only helps digestion, but also promotes gastrointestinal movement and prevents constipation.
pattern string: multi-material "colorful coat"
Among the colorful Mid-Autumn Festival foods, pattern string is the best. It is a barbecue skewer made of cucumber, carrot, platycodon grandiflorum, mushrooms and eggs. Putting it around the disc is as gorgeous as a colorful group, so it is often used as a Mid-Autumn Festival food. Meat and vegetables are evenly used in the pattern string, so the nutrition is not biased. Put red clams and mullets in the center of the plate to make the nutrition more harmonious.
Stewed beef tendon: the best meat dish
Meat dishes are indispensable for festival food, and stewed beef tendon is the strongest meat dish in autumn. Stewed beef tendon is a nutritious food with new chestnuts and delicious mushrooms in autumn, plus beef water, ginkgo, fried eggs and celery sticks to make it colorful and delicious.
In fact, Korean traditional food is far more than these. There are also essential foods for Koreans during the New Year, such as rice cake and rice cake soup, and candidates must also eat the meaning of high school in the college entrance examination. Every country and every nation has its own long history, and also has its own traditional cuisine. It also has its own popular culture, so it also has its own popular food. Next, I will introduce the popular food in Korea.
Korean popular food
Korean diet is mainly light, which is also one of the characteristics of Korean diet. Nowadays, people are increasingly pursuing health and health preservation, which makes more and more people pay attention to Korean diet. Speaking of Korean popular diet, everyone knows Korean kimchi, which is the first food in Korea. It is nutritious, delicious and beautiful, and it is a dish that Koreans can't live without. Then what is inseparable from kimchi is hot sauce, which is found in kimchi, barbecue, noodles and seafood. Lettuce and cucumber dipped in hot sauce is a dish. It can be said that one of the characteristics of Korean food is spicy. This kind of spicy food is different from that in China. The spicy food in China is fragrant, salty and spicy, while the Korean food is sweet and dry. I don't feel it when I eat it, and it makes people gasp when I swallow it. There is a snack in South Korea, which is similar to China's New Year's cake. It is cylindrical, long and cut into small pieces. It is put in a frying pan and mixed with red hot sauce. It is fried and eaten. This snack is available in many restaurants. Pancakes are also a famous Korean food, but they are thicker than those in China. They often contain shredded squid and the like, and they are mostly palm-sized, so they are easy to roll up. There is also a kind of pancake made of potato flour, which should be dipped in seasoning and tastes good. Similar to China's meals, there are jiaozi, mostly fried dumplings, steamed dumplings and steamed buns, but all of them have sweet fillings, just like thick-skinned bean buns. Korea's cold noodles must have been heard of. In the chilled sweet and sour soup, there is a thin noodle with two boiled eggs and two pears or radishes lying on it, which is very delicious. Cold noodles are mainly Pyongyang cold noodles made of buckwheat noodles and Xianxing cold noodles made of potatoes. The eating methods can also be divided into two kinds: soup and Chili sauce, and the taste is very smooth. On a hot summer day, sitting cross-legged and having a bowl of cold noodles, it's so cool!
Koreans usually eat barbecue when they invite guests to dinner, that is, beef or steak is marinated with seasoning and cooked on an iron plate. Garlic, hot sauce, lettuce leaves, and pickles are naturally indispensable. For the advanced ones, there are a few more seafood, and the meat is wrapped in lettuce leaves, which tastes very good. There is also a hot pot, similar to Japanese hot pot, which is actually a frying pan. Put slices of meat, onions, Flammulina velutipes, etc. in a pan, add soy sauce, fry them and dip them in seasoning. It tastes a little sweet, but it's a little greasy if you eat too much. Koreans don't like greasy, so when the meat in the pot oozes oil, they suck it with paper towels. Once, a friend invited me to eat steak soup. I think it must be delicious. When you look at it, there are several large rows in the casserole alone, and some chopped green onion is sprinkled in the clear soup, which tastes very light. They have already skimmed off the oil! I had to eat kimchi for dinner.
bibimbap is also a representative food in Korea, that is, white rice is put in a big bowl made of stone, which is hot, and meat, eggs, bean sprouts and other dishes are added, and then mixed with Chili sauce. The taste is not very good, but it is crispy and fragrant.
Koreans are very particular about nourishing, and they also want to eat ginseng chicken soup in dog days. Ginseng chicken soup is stewed with chicken and glutinous rice, ginseng, jujube, etc. until cooked, dipped in salt and eaten. It is said to be very nutritious. Speaking of soup, there is beef soup boiled with beef bones, which is delicious.
Food is the most important thing for people, and everyone can't live without food. But if we enjoy food, taste and vision at the same time, it can be said to be a beautiful scene on earth. I think Korean tableware can really be called beautiful scenery. It is said that Korean restaurants are influenced by the lifestyle of ancient palaces, paying more attention to form and tableware. What impressed me most were stainless steel chopsticks and small bowls with lids. Chopsticks are shorter than wooden chopsticks in China. They are heavy in your hand and engraved with exquisite patterns of various colors. When I first saw these things, I thought those small stainless steel bowls with lids were hand stoves, and it took me a long time to find rice in them. Perhaps because there are so many pickles, there are many kinds of utensils for holding pickles, such as square, round, multi-layer, single-layer, plastic and ceramic ... What surprises me most is that they often use a pair of scissors when eating. This pair of scissors cuts long noodles when eating cold noodles, pickles when eating kimchi, and barbecues when eating barbecue. In short, it is a very important role in dining.
Koreans also have a lot of manners when eating, which is a traditional virtue handed down by the Korean people. When you eat in a Korean restaurant, you usually take off your shoes and eat cross-legged on the kang. The rooms are small and the tables are short. If there are many people for a banquet, the walls of these small rooms can be pulled up like shutters, and the space required can be changed and adjusted at any time, which is very convenient. Guests usually sit on both sides of a square table, and the table can be spelled as long as the room is long, which reminds me of the scene of kindergarten children sitting in rows and sharing fruits. As we all know, another thing closely related to eating is drinking. Drinking in Korea is also very etiquette-oriented. When they propose a toast to others, they hold their own glasses, hand them to each other, pour half a glass of wine, and the worshiped person turns around, turns his back, looks up and drinks, and then retaliates. It's really interesting to give people a back of the head when drinking. If you really want to feel the food culture and characteristics of Korea, it should be the best way to travel to Korea in person. In the future, if you have the opportunity, you must go to Korea to experience its long history and cultural customs in person.