Happy Bear Eats: The Happy Bears Go to Market!

The simple things. Good ingredients, good people. These are the things that make a difference.
On our Hansik Tour we were wined and dined, sure. But it was the simple things that made the tour special.

In the middle of our second day, after an early morning start that included making tofu from scratch, harvesting perilla seeds, killing and preparing a chicken, eating yet another delicious and traditional Korean meal, we were off to the market. I’ve never met a food market I didn’t love. But this one would be different.

In my hometown of Yeongcheon, we host one of the three biggest markets in our province. My comparatively small town of 100,000 people has a huge, sprawling 5-day market full of fresh and preserved, local and imported, animal and vegetable, whole and processed Korean foods. It is totally awesome. Except for one thing… I don’t know what most of it is.

I’ve been nick-named The Foodinary back home. The “food-dictionary”. It’s a mark of pride– I know my global ingredients quite well. I was already rather familiar with the food, having worked in a Korean restaurant and for a Korean family for 3 years. I’ve spent plenty of time and money in our Asian markets back home. I’ve brought home random produce to research and experiment with. But here… well… there’s just so much!

So on this second day of our Korean Traditional Food Tour for Foreign Foodies, sponsored by Hansik.org, I had a special treat. A translator. Our hardworking and committed translator who understood our intense interest in passion for food and who worked tirelessly to keep up with our questions and thoughts and the promptings of the production crew. Special thanks to Jhi-yeon, whose unique personality made a big difference for me on the trip. It was between her efforts, and those of fellow Team Happy Bear member Mike, who is inspiringly fluent in Korean, that I was in true foodie heaven. All good meals start with good ingredients. And finally, finally, I was able to ask questions!
What is this? What is this for? How do you cook it? Can I taste it? I’m not sure how much time we spent at that market wandering between the different stalls, sampling things, and buying ingredients for the Korean breakfast we planned for the next day, but it could have been all day and I don’t think I would have grown tired of it. I was nearly manic with excitement. If that video footage is ever broadcast, you will see five foreigners in white Hansik sweatshirts and one of them will have wide, excited blue eyes and will probably be babbling non-stop about wanting to try everything! That will be me.

Picture stall after stall of different seafood, different fruit, different greens, different sauces, meat cuts, bones, beans, grains. Intersperse with street food carts and vendors selling prepared Korean side dishes called “banchan” and you’ve got some of the picture. Outside the market, the culinary wonder continued with seed roasters & pressers, a stall selling new and traditional Korean jellies, and one selling an innovative hand-made tofu with four layers that each seemed to have some vegetable, herb, or spice giving it color. I nearly had to be pulled away from the wonder if it all. It was, by far, the highlight of the trip for me.
Its a pretty simple thing: A visit to the market alongside two people who patiently helped to answer all my excited questions. Some people like shoes. Some like sports. Some like electronics. I like produce.

~ Tanya