Coffee Helps

Last night, in the latest episode of my Korean cookery experimentation,  I made a big pot of 김치찌개 (kimchi jjigae).

I’m really loving learning to ‘cook Korean’, because not only is it about a million times easier than learning to speak Korean, it’s also very rewarding in that you get to eat what you learn. And it’s delicious, even if it doesn’t taste quite as it’s supposed to.

The word jjigae means something like ‘stew’, although the consistency tends to be a little more watery than stews I’ve been used to in the past. You get soup or stew with just about every meal in Korea. Mostly, it’s just as a side dish, but some jjigaes provide the ‘main’ part of the meal, not that there’s really such a concept here. Kimchi jjigae is the best known and most beloved of all.

I will never forget the first time I tried it. I’d only been here for a week or so, and we’d gone into work on a Saturday for a parent-teacher thing. The cooking lady made the teachers lunch afterwards – a huge, bubbling pot of kimchi jjigae. The first spoonful scalded me even after blowing on it a bit – while most soups here are served lukewarm, this one is traditionally served boiling hot, in a stone pot that lets it keep boiling. Then with the second spoonful, when the skin had finished peeling off my mouth and my tastebuds regained some sensation, the heat of the kimchi and pepper sauce hit them. I swallowed hurriedly, but the spices felt like they left a blazing trail of flames behind, and the heat caught in my throat and choked me. I gasped for breath, my eyes started watering like crazy, and my face changed colour. The cooking lady, I noted, had been watching me to see what I’d make of it, so she clearly expected some kind of reaction – but even so, she did look a little taken aback!

Needless to say, I wasn’t a fan of kimchi jjigae after that. But, as I was saying to some friends recently, Korean food just takes some time to get used to. Most of it is actually really, really nice – but when you first arrive here, your tastebuds don’t know what to make of it, because it’s just so completely different to anything you’re used to having. I happily munch away on foods now that I would never have touched in a million years at home. Gradually, your senses adapt, your tastebuds adjust, and your preferences change. Six months ago, I could have cried with hunger as I forced down some Korean soup and thought of burgers and chips – but if you offered me a big bowl of kimchi jjigae served with steaming white rice now, I’d choose it over Western fast food any time. I find this really interesting. Can we really train ourselves to like certain foods just by forcing ourselves to eat them (and not really having any other choice) over a certain period of time?

Things I now eat on a regular basis that no longer seem disgusting or even unusual to me:

• octopus/squid tentacles
• fermented cabbage
• dried squid
• tofu
• cold noodles
• pickled radish cubes
• seaweed of more varieties and textures than you could imagine

Oh, and my kimchi jjigae was a great success, by the way. I’ve been craving more all day! And now, the time has come. Mmm…

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