The Perfect Meal is with People

We planned it to be a thank you to the production crew and Ziyeon our translator for helping take Happy Bear's plans and make them a reality. Also, it gave Happy Bear team an opportunity for the team members to make their favorite Korean foods eaten on the trip.

To do it required team work coordination and an investment of time for recipes that some in the team were unfamiliar with.

We shopped at the Geureum Market for our products.

This is a timeline of our preparation.

10pm:

It started with the rice. Many people think they can not eat brown rice but I set out to prove that anyone can eat and like it by using an ancient technique back when everyone had to eat brown rice. By soaking it in bacteria culture, the anti-nutritive plant defences are broken down and when cooked it will be transformed into something as fluffy and delicious as white rice but all the nutrition remaining. So we soaked it and put a little bit of makeoli to help break down the anti-nutrients in it.

Then Anina and I started the lotus root. To make the lotus root we boiled the root and after boiling we put it in a pot with sugar syup, soy sauce, and water and started to make a reduction sauce. We stopped it to finish the reduction in the morning.

Andy jumped in and started and made his gosari namul.

I prepped the vegetables for the soup I planned on making. Deciding on the soup that I chose was based on what options were available for us. We set out to eat only ethically raised food so at the market without knowing the origin of the pork or the beef, I settled on the mussels and mushrooms available to make a mushroom and mussels stew.

I prepped the Solomon Seal Tea for the morning.

12pm

We were asleep.

6am

Mike and I woke up. I drained the rice and then cooked it in the rice cooker.

I had to time the soup so it would be finished just before our meal.

I put the lotus root on to reduce and finish.

By 6:30am

Everyone was awake.

I steamed the mussels. Anina helped me to sepparate the mussels and add them to the pot. The vegetables, liquid, spices were added and rested.

6:35am

The lotus root was finished.

6:45am

Mike finished the garlic shoots.

7:30

The production crew started to arrive.

7:45am

The soup is heated.

The banchans is plated by the Happy Bear members and put on the table.

7:55am

The soup is finished.

The rice is plated.

The table is set.

8am

The soup pot is placed on the table.

We started eating at 8:05am. The Korean could tell foreigners made it but they liked it. They remarked that Korean would have added more salt. There were misses to be sure but there were hits as well. But what we set out to do was accomplished. We got together to eat a meal we made together and enjoy each others company.

This is something rarely done in the modern world and is quite a rebellion against  modern western eating style, because we were celebritating food made with a respect for the past. It wasn't eaten at a McDonald's driving in a car or eaten in a TGIF but in a home and eaten with a large group of people. Koreans do this all the time so it seems the perfect food style to represent this respect for the past. From that vantage of the past we believe we can move forward.

                       

                                                                           -Greg

Check out our recipe section for the recipes shown here.

                       

                                  Bellflower Root Muchim                           Gosari Namul



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Garlic shoots by Mike             Sliced Figs

Brown Rice soaked and fermented   and Mushroom and Mussell JJigae by Greg

Pickled Lotus Root by Anina

 









Three Generations of Women Representing Nourishing Traditions

In white from left to right: Tanya, Greg, Mike with the
daughter and grand daughter of the inventor of
Jeonju Bibimbap. 

At Korea House, in Jeonju, there is a special connection that goes back three generations. The Happy Bears minus two, are standing with the daughter and granddaughter of the inventor of this tradition. The mother of the family invented the Jeonju bimbimbap.

What they represent are food traditions in Korea that go to the beginning of the 20th century and extend beyond those times. They represent a knowledge about food that rivals health food gurus and trekkie nutrition experts. Because of this knowledge, they have our respect.

The daughter of the inventor Jeonju bibimbap sat down to tell us how to make the Jeonju Bibimbap. I say inventor of Jeonju bibimbap because the idea of mixing vegetables with rice(which is what bimbimbap means) was long before thought about. What the inventor of Jeonju bimbimbap did was to make the food grander, more beautiful but also heartier.

Her daughter dressed in traditional hanbok told us Happy Bears what the vegetables and meat were before us, how to prepare them and then portioned out the varieties into our bowls. After some time she stopped putting things into our bowls and asked us to finish our presentations ourselves.

We were to make our dishes beautiful first. Then we were to mix the sauce with the meat, oils, and vegetables together. Tanya called bimbimbap truly slow food. This is because so much time is spent on correct preparation of the bowl before mixing the ingredients together- such a difference from fast food today.

She continued giving her opinions and recommendations while we worked on our presentations and after we finished and ate. She came around and judged our bimbos and gave her recommendations on how to improve the tastes.

Such care, love and knowledge she gave us in her critiques. This doesn't have enough flavor together or this has too much oil, or this doesn't have enough seasoning she would say.

In pre-literature societies such knowledge from an elder was essential for the survival of a community for they gave their knowledge they had on nutrition to their community. Why don't we respect our elders more?

The results were nourishing. We felt fantastic after our bibimbap.

-Greg

If you liked this piece, other Happy Bears have blogged about their perspectives at Korea house:

Happy Bear Tanya wrote about the FULL experience in a piece called Beloved Bibimbap.

Happy Bear  Mike wrote about the vegetarian nourishment he gets from bimbimbap called  Bibimbap: Veg Heaven. Check them out!

Why Kimchi Is Good for the Soul

I never gave much thought to kimchi before I moved to Korea. Just miles from my house, there were loads of Korean restaurants and Asian supermarkets where, unbeknownst to me, thousands of foodies (did they exist in the 90's?) and Korean expats must have been getting their fix. Personally, though, if it couldn't be cooked in the microwave or toaster oven, I just wasn't interested.

How strange then that, now, I see so many fantastic things about kimchi, and almost, if resentfully, have to nod my head when Koreans say that it just might be the perfect food. First of all, it's just great to eat. Spicy like salsa, crisp like an apple, sour like movie theater candy - no matter what you're eating, something about kimchi will compliment it. Second, it's versatile. Eat it raw, eat it stir-fried, drop it in a stew, make pancakes out of it, slap it on your burger or pizza. Third, it's healthy. Made (in its most basic incarnation) with cabbage, salt, red pepper paste or flakes, and a bit of shrimp or anchovies, it's got nutrients a-plenty and calories a-few. The fermentation process loads it up with all sorts of little bacteria that provide your body with nutrients that you might not get in a diet of exclusively raw, cooked, or processed foods. Fourth, it lasts. Whether you make it yourself or buy it elsewhere, you can keep it refrigerated for up six months in an air-tight container. It may grow sour, but it would require some serious neglect for it to grow inedible. Fifth - and this is a somewhat subtler point - cabbage can live in the ground long into the winter, even surviving when the temperatures drop below freezing, which means that it thrives long after sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and carrots have given up the ghost. Over the centuries, during the months of December, January, February, and even March, when there wasn't really a lot of stuff to harvest, cabbage and Kimchi probably saved a great number of Koreans from starvation. Now, we're more likely to think in terms of food independence, but either way, it's unarguably a good thing to have some grub growing nearby.

So, what would a Korean food tour be without some time spent immersing oneself in cabbagey glory? As I detailed in my last post, Lee Hee-cheon of White Crane Farm was kind enough to let us swipe a few of his cabbages (even though technically they were just babies whose time hadn't quite come), which we then took down to the restaurant run by his wife, Park Yang-yoon. Mrs. Park is a fantastic cook: as interested in her husband in providing clean, safe, healthy food, but probably a bit more talented when it comes to making it scrumptious.

Thanks to a giant bibimbap spread earlier in the afternoon and some raw carrots and garlic just before at the farm, we Happy Bears needed to work up a bit of an appetite before we could begin chowing down. So, Mrs. Park set us up with a table outside the restaurant and gave us a crash course in making kimchi. The photo record is somewhat incomplete, since all of us were busy washing and chopping and slathering, but here's the gist:

1) Chop the butt off of the cabbage and remove the outer leaves, which were the most exposed to dirt and bugs. These leaves can be cooked and eaten in sides and stews, but apparently don't make great kimchi.

2) Then cut the whole head in half along the vertical axis. Make another cut like you're going to quarter it, still along the vertical axis, but stop about 2/3 of the way down. This allows you to open up the cabbage for the next step, without completely disassembling it.

Andy and Anina work on Step 1 while me, Greg, and Tanya work on 2.

3) Rinse the not-quite-quartered heads thoroughly, then rub salt on each and every leaf. This kills bacteria and opens up the pores, allowing the spices to soak in later.

Andy's a'washin', Tanya's a'saltin'

4) Stack all the wet, salted cabbage halves and then apply pressure by leaving a heavy rock or pot on top of them. I guess it takes some time for the salt to do its work.

5) Prepare the sauce. Normally, red pepper paste, ginger, garlic, shrimp, and anchovies, but we also chopped up some other veggies for extra goodness.

Knife skill contest time.

6) Don your plastic gloves, let you burn off your fingers. Lie the cabbage on its back (with the outermost leave touching the plate) and lift up all but the last leaf. Rub some sauce on it, and also on the back of the leaf above it. Let the next one down and repeat, making sure to slather a bit of spice on the front and back of every leaf.

This stuff was still in the ground, alive and growing, less than 2 hours beforehand!

7) It's ready to eat! Or, you can wait a few days/weeks/months. (However it takes 2-5 days to ferment,depending on the weather).

As if the act of eating weren't reward enough, there's one more thing I'd like to point out about kimchi. The actual process of making it was also a blast! I knew two of my team members going into the project, but I had never even exchanged emails with the other two, let alone met them. We were all friendly, but, personally, I didn't quite know what to talk to them about while we were listening to the farmer and chopping our own cabbage heads off. But, when we joined together to make Kimchi, we really hit it off. All being involved in learning something together and, even more, sharing knowledge and hints and tips while working towards a common goal, gave us a comfortable atmosphere in which to get to know one another. When you're on opposite sides of the table preparing kimchi with someone, there's no need to ask awkward questions and try to figure out what you've got in common. You're already there, together, doing the same thing. It's all right in front of your eyes. The bond is more instant, and more tangible, than any "me too." It's much easier to come together over production than consumption.

I'm sure everyone else has good, if not quite this exotic or preposterous, memories of this sort. Cooking with parents in the kitchen, with the extended family over the holidays, with roomies in college, or out at some backyard barbeque. Whatever the specifics, just hanging around food with other people is one of the simplest and most satisfying pleasure life affords us. This is also one of the pleasures that we risk losing as we outsource our cooking to restaurants and corporations, leaving independence, tradition, and solidarity by the wayside. I feel lucky to have had the chance to realize this. And also to eat (some of) the following:

Tofu, fresh kimchi, and steamed pork



From 12 o'clock, going clockwise: candied lotus roots, cucumber pickled in soy sauce, radish leaf kimchi (I believe), old/sour cabbage kimchi, sauerkraut (first I'd ever seen in Korea), fern bracken with perilla dressing, and, in the middle, pickeld garlic.

Time to eat!

Translator, foodie, foodie, chef, farmer, foodie, foodie, foodie