Korean War began in June 25th, 1950 and
was continued for three years. Aftermath of the Korean War was tragic. South
Korea and North Korea got separated, and the soil was devastated. People had to
rebuild infrastructure from the scratch, and they starved. After the war, they
ate anything that was edible. From 1950 – 1960s, the war food era came.
1950s picture of people
eating pork porridge and modern budae jjigae
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One of the most well-known war foods is
budae jjigae (부대찌개). Buddae jjigae means jjigae
originated from the US army. Budae jjigae originated from the US army, who came
to South Korea to prevent the South Korea from being communized, in Uijeongbu. Koreans
collected all the food trash from the US army and fried them with rice. In
order to increase the volume of the dish, they put a lot of water and seasoned
the soup with pepper paste; people called this soup pork porridge. According to
the Pyunghwa newspaper released in January 7th, 1953, leftover cigarette was
found in the pork porridge [2, 5, 6]. The pork porridge evolved into what we
call budae jjigae.
Many original Korean cuisine became
spicier after the Korean War. Kimchi is one example. Chosun started to import
chili pepper powder from Japan after the war between Japan in 1590s. In 16th
century, Japanese traded with Portuguese who ruled South America where people
grew chili peppers. However, Chosun people did not seasoned food with chili pepper
powder or pepper paste. They started to season food in 18th century,
and their usage increased dramatically after the Korean War [1,4]. Some
scholars argue that eating spicy food was a mean to express people’s stress
[4].
Busan’s
famous milmyun and pork gookbab
copyright 2014. Yeong-ran Ahn all rights reserved.
I want to introduce two dishes popular
in Busan: Milmyun(밀면) and pork gookbab (돼지국밥). People say we must eat those two when we tour Busan. However,
their history is rather short; refugees from Hamgyeong-buk do which is now part
of North Korea invented the two during the war time. They invented milmyun as a
substitute for naengmyun they often ate at Hamgyeong-buk do. People made
noodles with buckwheat for the original Pyongyang naengmyun and potato starch
for the original Hamheung naengmyun. However, the refugees did not have all the
ingredients they needed; as a result they used flour to make noodles [4,5].
They could earn flour from the US army.
Before the late 19th century,
Koreans did not eat pork often; they mainly ate beef. Koreans started to raise
pigs during the Japanese colonization. People started to consume pork, but
making gookbab with beef based broth and beef was more common. However, it was
impossible to buy beef during the war time. People started to use pig’s head
which is the cheapest body part of a pig to make broth. [3,4] And that was the
origin of pork gookbab.
References:
1. Hyun Jung Suh. Korean History
Expedition 6. Seoul: Woongjin Junior. 2006.
2. Hyunshin Do. History of Food Cooked
by War. Seoul: Sisdae ui Chang. 2011. Print.
3. Joo, Youngha. Korean History on
Eating Table. Seoul: Humanist, 2013. Print.
4. Joo, Youngha. The Food War, the
Culture War. Seoul:Sagaejul. 2000. Print
5. Kim, Chanbyul Birth of Delicious
Korean Dish. Seoul: Rockmedia. 2008. Print
6. Kyo Ik Hwang. Museum of Korean Food
Culture. Seoul: Ddabi, 2011. Print.
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