When it comes to food, no country can compare to China, so when Chinese people go abroad, they all feel that they have nothing to eat. Although South Korea is a close neighbor, there are still differences after all. Many people even say that eating in South Korea is like entering a temple. The implication is that there is a lack of oil and water. It is true that Korean food is mainly light, but this does not mean that Korea does not have delicious food. Everyone knows that Korean kimchi is very famous. Kimchi is Korea’s number one delicacy. It is nutritious, delicious and beautiful. It is a dish that Koreans can’t live without.
In addition to kimchi, Koreans are also inseparable from hot sauce. It is in kimchi, on barbecue, in noodles, and on seafood. Dipping lettuce and cucumbers in hot sauce is a dish. It can be said that one of the characteristics of Korean food is spicy. This kind of spiciness is different from Chinese spiciness. Chinese spiciness is fragrant and salty, while Korean spiciness is sweet and dry. You don’t feel it when you eat it. When you swallow it, it makes you gasp.
There is a snack in South Korea, which is similar to Chinese rice cakes. It is cylindrical and long, cut into small pieces, mixed with red spicy sauce in a frying pan, and fried before eating. This snack is available in many restaurants.
Pancakes are also a well-known food in Korea, but they are thicker than Chinese ones. They are often stuffed with shredded squid and the like, and are mostly palm-sized, making them easy to roll up. There is also a kind of pancake made with potato flour, which is eaten with condiments and is delicious.
Similar to Chinese food, there are also dumplings, mostly fried or steamed dumplings. There are also steamed buns, but they all have sweet fillings, like thick-skinned bean buns. You must have heard of Korean cold noodles.
In the cold sweet and sour soup, there is a ball of thin noodles with two hard-boiled eggs and two slices of pear or radish lying on it. It is very delicious.
Cold noodles are mainly Pyongyang cold noodles made of buckwheat noodles and Hamhung cold noodles made of potatoes. They can also be eaten in two ways: those with soup and those mixed with chili sauce. The texture is very chewy and smooth. . On a hot summer day, sit cross-legged and have a bowl of cold noodles, it’s so refreshing!
When Koreans treat guests to dinner, they usually eat barbecue, which is to marinate beef or steak with seasonings and grill it on an iron plate. Garlic, chili sauce, lettuce leaves, and kimchi are naturally indispensable. For more advanced dishes, there are more seafood, and the meat is wrapped in vegetable leaves. It tastes very good. There is also a type of hot pot, similar to Japanese hot pot, which is actually a frying pan. Put the meat slices, onions, enoki mushrooms, etc. in the pan, add soy sauce, fry it and dip it in the seasonings to eat. It tastes a bit sweet, but it will be a bit greasy after eating too much. Koreans don't like greasy food, so when the meat in the pot leaks oil, use paper towels to absorb it. Once, a friend treated me to steak soup. I thought it must be delicious. When it was served, there were a few large ribs in the casserole, and a few chopped green onions were sprinkled in the clear soup, which tasted very light. They had skimmed off the oil long ago! I had to eat kimchi with my rice.
Bibimbap is also a representative Korean delicacy. It is white rice served in a large, heavy bowl made of stone. The bowl is heated, and meat, eggs, bean sprouts, etc. are put in. The dish is mixed with chili sauce and eaten. The taste is not very good, but the crispy rice is crispy and fragrant.
Korean people are very particular about nourishment, and they also eat ginseng chicken soup during the dog days of summer. Samgyetang is made by simmering baby chicken with glutinous rice, ginseng, dates, etc. until thoroughly cooked and dipped in salt. It is said to be very nutritious. Speaking of soup, there is also beef soup made from beef bones, which is very delicious.
Although I don’t really like Korean food, I quite like their various tableware. It is said that Korean catering was influenced by the lifestyle of ancient royal palaces and paid more attention to form and tableware. What impressed me most were the stainless steel chopsticks and the small bowl with a lid. The chopsticks are a little shorter than Chinese wooden chopsticks. They are heavy in the hand and are engraved with exquisite patterns of various colors. If you accidentally drop them and hit your feet while eating, it will hurt. When I first arrived in Korea, I thought those small stainless steel bowls with lids were hand stoves. After covering them for a while, I discovered that there was rice in them. Maybe because there are so many kimchi, there are various kinds of utensils for holding kimchi, including square, round, multi-layered, single-layered, plastic, ceramic... What surprised me the most is that they often use them when eating. A pair of large scissors. These scissors can cut long noodles when eating cold noodles, cut kimchi when eating kimchi, and cut grilled meat when eating barbecue. In short, they play a very important role during meals.
When eating in Korean restaurants, you usually take off your shoes and sit cross-legged on the Kang. The rooms are small and the tables are low. If there are many people like a banquet, the walls of these small rooms can be pulled up like blinds, and the space can be changed and adjusted at any time, which is very convenient.
The guests usually sit on both sides of the square tables, and the tables can be as long as the room is. This reminds me of the scene of kindergarten children sitting in rows to share fruit.
South Korea is also a polite country. Eating is fine, but drinking is different. When they toast to someone else, they hold their own wine glass, hand it to the other person, and pour half a glass of wine. The person being toasted turns around, turns his back, raises his head to drink, and then returns the toast. It's really fun to give people the back of their heads when they drink.