Greg Eats a Bug for Health

I was dared too what can I say. And I'm not afraid of any bug!

Conversation with Mike

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

 









Mushroom and Mussel JJigae

This was a hit at the Happy Bear Breakfast on Day Three of our Trip with the Korean production crew because of its spicy kick. The Westerners would have liked a little less spice for their breakfast, so act according to your tastes.

To make this simple and delicious simple, you will need:

1. 1kg of Mussels
2. 3T of Gochgaru
3. T of Apple Cider Vinegar
4. 10 cups of water
5. 2kg of mushrooms
6. 2 onions
7. 4 cloves of garlic
8. 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
9. Salt to taste
10. 1 medium sized radish cut into 5 cm cubes
11. 5 small potatoes, cut into 5cm cubes

1. Take the mussels and wash them. Sepparate the mussels whos shells are open and dispose. They are no good to eat.
2. Steam the mussells in very little water. In five minutes they will open and be ready.
3. Sepparate the mussels from the shells.
4. Combine all the elements together and cook all together.
5. Eat and Enjoy.

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!

The Paid for Chicken

SongChamBong Joseon Folk Village in  Geurong, Jeollabukdo has the most amazing tasting Baeksu (Chicken Soup) and Daktoritang (Spicy Chicken Soup). The reason they taste so amazing is because they are raised on nutritious feed and are cooked the day they are killed.

It was important for Team Happy Bear to only eat ethically raised meat and we were very happy with the living conditions for the chickens.

I had the opportunity to take responsibility for all the chickens I have eaten by killing one of the chickens we would eat for our lunch. 

I could finally put aside the guilty feeling of having other people kill things for me and I could face the reality of killing another creature. 

Before

After: Spicy Chicken Soup, a really nourishing meal.

Eating is a happy occasion that has inspired many to give thanks. Eating meat was a special occasion as hunters or farmers would kill an animal in order for their families to get the needed nutrition which was lacking in their families everyday diet. In pre-Moderrn Korea, the Mother-In-Law would slaughter and cook a chicken for her Son-In-Law when he would visit.   Eating a delicious chicken is enough itself to put happiness into an occasion.

However,  along the way to becoming a delicious meal whether from a high quality chicken from SongChamBong or from the factory farm, something died so we can live. 

There is nothing to feel bad about when taking the life of another creature so you that you may live. We live in a cycle of life in which plants and animals feed each other.

 However, that animal or plant's death should be recognized and gratitude felt. 

The only way I could really feel grateful was to kill the chicken myself. 

 I chased a chicken and caught it.  Then the farmer instructed me how to kill and I followed through. I held its feet with one foot and wings another foot and using my both hands twisted the animals neck until it broke( something which was less difficult than I thought it would be). 

Though I felt tense before taking its life, afterwards I felt a sense of relief for three reasons. I felt relieved that this creatures pain was over and that what I had done, had to be done.  Finally, I was relieved of the need to prove something to myself.

And I felt grateful. 

I prepared the chicken for cooking. I put the animal in steaming water to loosen its feathers. Then I took it out.  Mike and Anina came to me and helped me pluck it.

"How do you feel," Mike asked me.

"I feel good," I said.

"I feel good to," he said.

The farmer cut open the bird and told me what to do next and I did it. 

After gutting the chicken, we went for a walk. The chicken was taken to the restaurant to be cooked into Daktoritang(Spicy Chicken Soup). 

We arrived at the restaurant shortly afterwards and waited for our food to arrive. The Baeksu arrived 10 minutes later. Then sometime later my freshly killed chicken arrived transformed into Daktoritang.

I tasted it. 

The taste was noticeably different from the cheap chicken my mother would buy from my local supermarket as a kid.  The difference was night and day. The supermarket chicken had no flavor so my mother would smother the chicken in breadcrumbs and fry it in oil. But this SongChamBong chicken tasted amazing. It tasted as if I had never tasted chicken before. Its intensity of flavor and texture put huge smiles on my face throughout the meal with each taste.

There was another reason I was smiling. I had paid for this chicken. 

So delicious, I pasted this picture twice.

-Greg

Contact information:

Song ChamBong Chosun Village

Geurung, Jeollabukdo

www.folkvillage.co.kr

063-532-0054

011-734-4506

If you liked this article, then maybe you would like to watch:

The Paid for Chicken Video

Or read about Baeksu which is another Chicken soup from the same restaurant:

Baeksu

The Happy Bear Mission in Jeollabukdo

-Greg

Meet Greg

Hello.

I am student of permaculture, herbalism, brewing, botany, wild gathering,  cob building and many DIY projects. I do this because I wish to free myself from a mechanical world of numbers and dead facts, and its constantly breaking machines, and people. There is more to life than making money and I wish to opt out of participation in the rat race.

My blog electrickimchi.blogspot.com and my youtube videos are my attempts to teach, inspire and be taught what it means to be a human from planet Earth, and not a domesticated visitor to this planet.

Blogging to me is a means to an end as a way to gather together the positive people and build a community of like minded people interested in living a life for nature and not against it.

When I'm not cooking and eating and reading, making music, or spending time outside, I'm with my wife or my friends. All together I'm grateful for the people I meet. We become connections made of flesh and spirit, beyond this matrix we so often meet.

I hope you have a connected day.

from my time at Mulme Healing Farm. 

Greg