nakji

Khadija, Thanks for your clarification. I didn't mean to imply that you were being necessarily simplistic. I was trying to clarify my feelings from my first post - I wanted to be perfectly clear that people in other countries have similar standards to ourselves; in my (humble) opinion it's not the culture that results in the dirty stores, it's other factors. And I just felt that some posts were offering explanations that suggested culture was part of it; and excused it for those reasons....but that was my reaction, and rereading the thread I see that that's not true of any one post; it was my reaction to the thread as a whole. I'm guilty of projecting my own sensitivities! I apologize for misreading things. I also clearly misunderstand the true meaning of cultural relativism, as my understanding of that term was the, er, shallow sense that you described in your first paragraph. So, off to Wikipedia for further reading. Interesting, about the use of "ethnic" as a term - I used to teach from an ESL book that asked students what their favourite "ethnic" food was - well, this was a completely useless task, as what the book designated as "ethnic" food was to them, simply "food". This chapter drove me batty, and I was angered by the [White, Western] assumptions made. Especially in an ESL text! In the end, I simply taught the students that it meant food from countries or cultures not your own. I'm not sure if that was the best definition, but it got us through the unit. I think I'll go look up that thread! Turnabout is fairplay, however, and the Koreans and Vietnamese I've talked to at length consider "Western" an ethnicity, and consider Western food to be hamburgers, pizza, spaghetti, cola, and so on; westerners eat this every day; which is why everyone there is so fat. I've had the hardest time trying to tell them that a) the west is very diverse (read: not just America) and b) people in the west eat different things every day. They do not eat hamburgers for lunch and pizza for dinner. Overall, this thread is very interesting to me, as I have spent a lot of time in ethnic western stores in my years in Asia, and have found them to be in the same condition as similarly themed (imported, hard to find ingredients aimed at recent immigrants or expatriates) food stores in Canada.

I'd like to re-iterate my point here, because I think it's getting lost in cultural relativism. I don't think that there is a pre-disposition in any culture to be more accepting of dirty/dusty/weeping/misordered cans or other food containers. Whenever I travel, I make it a point to search out food stores; I get a kick out of strolling through foreign supermarkets. I've been in food stores or supermarkets all across Asia, and have shopped regularly in both Vietnam and Korea. The food stores here are full of clean, bright cans and bottles facing forward. Nothing is weeping anything. Nothing is dusty. People care a lot about the cleanliness and order of the products. They do not have lowered standards. They are not "used to" eating this way and are more accepting of it than us in their home countries. But When I visit special "western" ethnic markets; that is to say, small stores specializing in western food products that have been imported to Asia, such as cereal; bottled spaghetti sauce; Macaroni and Cheese; corn chips; various cheeses; lunch meats, etc.; these stores have been dusty, crowded, and jumbled full of cans and bottles in various states of disrepair. Are all the Vietnamese people who visit wondering, "Goodness, these foreigners who shop here must be used to such dirty stores! They must have special immunity for eating this stuff"? So I think it's not where the shoppers are from that matters. It's the fact that 1) The products have come a long way and have suffered in transit and 2) shoppers in these stores have little choice when it comes to purchasing these products, so they must accept them in whatever form they find them in. So to sum up: [Asian] people do not have lower standards for the condition of the products that they purchase BUT people who are buying products that remind them of home and can't find anywhere else do.

Yeah, I remember blocks of frozen hot dogs, slowly defrosting in the aisles. I also got the impression that at the end of the day, they just chucked the unsold back into the freezer! Why do ethnic markets seem less concerned with cleanliness? I think Zenkimchi partially answered that. Because people will buy it anyway, if they're desperate enough for the product. So why bother? I remember buying cottage cheese from the western markets in Seoul; keeping it in my backpack all night; taking it home on the bus and eating the next morning for breakfast. Would I have treated cottage cheese that way in Canada? No way! I would've assumed it would kill me. In fact, I just finished off a plate of lovely fried Halloumi that I got at a western market here in Hanoi. It also sat out of a fridge for hours, as the place I bought it from was far from my house. I don't care, because if I didn't take the products like that, I'd never get them. I hardly care that the store I bought it in was also full of dusty and dented cans - of Hunt's tomatoes! So ultimately I think it's a combination of the distance the products have to travel, and the relative desperation of the consumers buying the products. If they can't get it anywhere else, they'll take it like that! So management doesn't really care about the state of things. I've lived in both Korea and Vietnam, and I can say that regular stores in both these countries and clean and neatly stocked. So I don't think it's that people from those countries don't care about that. Hmm. I'm not sure if that's as coherent as I think it is.

Indeed. I held each piece with my fingers at each end, and they snapped in half, cleanly. I even did one, not holding the ends, but just pressing in with my fingertips. Still worked. But then, this box has been open in my kitchen for about a week, and I'm in Hanoi. So the average humidity is somewhere around 160%. I feel this may have an affect.

I just went into my kitchen and tried this out. I had a small bunch of spaghetti in a box - not enough to to cook for one person, but that I had perversely saved nonetheless - just the thing for a pointless experiment! I broke four pieces in a row, and all of them broke perfectly in half. Did I do it wrong? Maybe my kitchen is more humid than average - would that affect it? edited for spalling

Just before I left, the latest rage in Samgyeobsal restaurants was to use a slanted flat stone to cook the meat. The pork fat would run to the bottom, where canny diners such as myself would lay strips of kimchi or mushrooms, garlic, etc. The kimchi cooks up incredibly in the pork fat (what doesn't?), and tastes ....divine. The highest culinary elevation of kimchi, for me. Now I'm dreaming of Samgyeobsal...in Hanoi! Drat!

I put up some pics of a typical street food set up here My favourite Korean street foods are the sweet things. Hotuk, and those little waffle balls stuffed with sweet white bean paste, shaped like walnuts...what were they called...Hodu-something? And the the fish breads. Who could forget those? Although it seems they might be Japanese in origin as well.....nothing is better than coming down off of Gwanaksan on a late fall day, and getting a hotuk on your way to the subway station. Insadong has the most famous hotuk makers, with the 15 minute line-ups...Zenkimchi, do you have a favourite?

I actually received a spam gift pack one year for Chuseok from my well-intentioned boss. I thanked him politely and passed all nine (!) cans on to a friend who is less pickier than I. I think he used them for Kimchi bokkum bap.

Kimchi bokkumbap; gun mandu; or incredibly greasy doncasse eaten while watching AFN PSAs... alternatively; slices of Rich Gold Pizza Hut pizza (the kind with the ring of sweet potato puree around the crust) eaten with the sweet-pickle juice soaking into the crust. Not exactly authentic Korean, but perfect for soaking up the chemical afterburn of a night spent drinking Cass Draft. or; whatever's left on the living room floor including but not limited to; errant yang-pa rings; strips of barbecue-flavoured dried squid; or beer nuts. ah, memories. Sorry, I guess that would be a better reply to "Food I ate in Korea while hung-over" thread than "Korean Hangover Food". Those little croissants that Paris Baguette would sell, with the chopped hot dog, mayonnaise, sweet corn, cheese and ketchup weren't all that bad, either.

Wow, I'm reading this thread from an Internet cafe in Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan, and it has inspired me to take more photos of my meals! I couldn't look at your pictures, due to the speed of my connection, but I'm really looking forward to viewing them when I get back in the loop. My husband and I are here in India on a three week trip - We started in Delhi, went to Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur, Pushkar, Ranakpur, Jodhpur, and now we're in Jaisalmer. It has been an amazing trip so far, and I'm ashamed to say that I'm only now getting into the swing of things and feeling comfortable enough to stroll through the food markets and start bargaining! I wish I had another month here...but we'll definitely be back. Some of our best meals have been entirely accidental - for example, we stopped at a roadside watering hole somewhere between here and Jodhpur. It was the only stop for miles, but our driver claimed it was great (I'm always worried that he's just saying that as he no doubt gets a commission, but he's always right on the mark - I guess there's no repeat business if they only take you to crappy places!) Anyway, we had a dum aloo there that was just spectacular! Incredible flavours, no doubt owing to the fact that the pots have probably never seen a scrub brush in their long and distinguished lives. I look forward to making a full report when our lives have settled down a bit - we're moving to Ha Noi next month, so I'm sure I'll have lots to report on.

I haven't been to Phuket since before the Tsunami, but I had a great meal and a wonderful cooking lesson with Pum. She used to run two restaurants - one in Phuket and one on Phi Phi Island. Her restaurant was bright orange and the food she served was simple and delicious. Her lesson was great for a beginner. It was a one-on-one session, and she walked me through all the ingredients to cooking three or four amazing dishes (my choice). If she's still around, I recommend a stop at her place. I know the Phi Phi location is gone, but her old address was 204/32 Raj-u-thit Songroi Pi Road, at Patong Beach. Although I really don't recommend Patong beach for any other reason. Aha! A website address revealed itself at the bottom of my card: www.pumthaifoodchain.com Not sure when it was last updated though.

I don't like to sort my cutlery. This drives my husband crazy. But I always think, you know, I can tell a fork from a knife just by looking at it. Why do they need to be grouped together? I keep them all together in a upright canister on the the back of my counter.To me, it makes perfect sense, but I do admit that everyone who visits my kitchen finds it deeply illogical.

"Sam Soong" was a huge hit here in Korea, where the main character, styled as a kind of Korean Bridget Jones, was a pastry chef. This generated a lot of interest and resulted in a bunch of new shows on our cooking network featuring baking, which is something Korean women haven't really gotten into until now. The baking section of my local Tesco doubled, as well! There's a kid's show we get opn NHK that has a giant purple carrot as a character, which I find midly disturbing. Sometimes there's a cooking segment. Anyone know what it's called?

The humanity. They have Kiwifruit flavoured, too.

Some of my favourite "fusion" recipes for kimchi are here What happens when foreigners get their hands on kimchi and incorporate it into their native cuisines, based entirely on western ingredients that can be found in an average "Mart" in Gangneung, Korea? My favourites are Kimchi Ham bokkum sandwichi and Kimchi Garlic Sludge. Warning: Language

Here in Korea, the chicken bake seems to be even more popular than the Bulgogi bake - I see far more of the chicken ones in the crowd. The hot dogs are also prewrapped here, which results in the soggy bun, but the dog itself isn't bad - very girthy. Clam chowder is also popular here, and I think the latte that I get for around a dollar is a good deal - I noticed that they use Starbucks beans for the espresso. Much cheaper than paying around $4 if I went to an actual Starbucks. The problem is, my husband gets into a snit every time we try to eat in the food court. See, in Korea, most people are used to eating kimchi with every meal. They don't usually eat kimchi with western food, however; for some reason sweet cucumber pickles are always offered instead, for free, in unlimited quantities. Costco; however, doesn't offer the pickles. It does have the onions, ketchup and mustard in dispensers, and it used to offer packets of relish, all, presumably, intended for the hotdogs. But to compensate for the lack pickles, people started filling a dinner sized plate with the onions, ketchup and mustard, all mixed together to make some sort of proto-kimchi. They used to use up to five or six packets of relish in the mix as well (per table) but management finally got smart and started issuing one packet of relish per person, per slice of PIZZA. Not the hot dog. The pizza. I find it a cute adaptation of local custom to foreign food (Chinese food combo plates, anyone?) but it drives my husband crazy. He's always yelling, "Those onions aren't free, people!", in fact, it's not unusual to see someone take a whole slice of pizza and cover it with the onion concoction. It drives him nuts because so often he hears people tell him they don't like western food because it's too "sweet". Anyway, I can just picture some accountant at Costco HQ, wherever that is, looking at the onion line item on his costing spreadsheet for the Korea stores, and thinking, "WTF?". And then I giggle. I don't understand why they just don't provide the pickles. I miss the poutine I used to get in Halifax.

I can't buy it here in Korea, although I can get "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese", which I maintain tastes different - not as sharp as the Canadian version. But I've never backed it up with a side-by-side taste comparison. (Hmmm....project?) When I do get some in a care package from home, I like it runny, with lots of milk, and freshly ground black pepper. My husband likes his with barely any milk at all, so we usually have to prepare a box each. If it's a special occasion, I like it with bacon on the side.

It could be yeolmu kimchi, or maybe chonggakmu kimchi. Here is a brief guide. I think kimchi varies a lot depending on the person who makes it. I get the best cabbage kimchi from my boss's wife - her family likes it with lots of shredded mu and she doesn't skimp on the ginger. I find the best way to get yummy kimchi is to befriend a Korean housewife, and beg a sample of the stuff she makes for her family. I've also had an amazing cabbage kimchi from my favourite pork restaurant in Seoul - it's kind of limp and watery, but the owner ages it for six months before she serves it, and it has an amazing cidery- sourness that I love, with almost none of the shrimpy flavour that I don't love. Every time I visit, she sends me home with a big bag. Of course, while begging, I usually have to have the whole, "Oh, you like Kimchi? Really? It's not too spicy for you?" conversation that I have every single time someone sees me eating kimchi. It's a small price to pay for good kimchi!

Which reminds me of the time I was in a LCBO in Otttawa, and the clerk refused to take my Nova Scotia Driver's License as valid ID, because it wasn't from Ontario. I made her drag her big binder of valid IDs from under the desk and search through until she found not only was Nova Scotia a part of Canada, it was capable of issuing legal identification. Imagine! mumblemumblemumbleuppercanadiansmumblemumblemumble

Ah, thanks. When I'm at a beef barbeque restaurant, someone more senior than me is usually ordering - so I never see the menu. My friends and I usually hang out in the pork houses - much cheaper. I'll definitely have to check this out, though - I'm leaving Korea in 6 weeks, after three years of living here.

Quahog!

I had a Halla-bong for breakfast. It's some sort of orange-tangelo type thing. It's called a Halla-bong as they are (supposedly) only grown on Jeju island. Possibly the most delicious orange I've ever eaten. Succulent, sweet, with an amazing sweet-orange aroma. Which it should have been, considering it cost me $5. Halla-bong

When I was visiting Beijing, I always made a point to order the most creatively described thing on the menu - My favourites were "The Palace Explodes the Chicken" and "The Water Boils the Peanut". "Squirrel Shaped Fish" was also nice. I'm trying to figure out what's exactly lost in translation there...obviously, they mean "Boiled Peanuts", but instead they set water up as the subject, eschew the adjective, and go straight for an active present simple sentence, with "peanut" as an object. (Although it's heartwarming that they remembered to use an article.) Is this how it would be described in Mandarin, and they just translated literally? Any Chinese grammarians out there? My favourite sign in Seoul is "Born to Be Chicken" - a fried chicken restaurant near Seoul Station.

Wait - that's a Japanese chain? I always assumed it was French..or similar.... We used to have them here in Seoul, but not anymore. They went the way of the Andrew's Egg tart, alas. I mourn both their passing. We did, on the other hand, get a Krispy Kreme, so I guess it all balances out.

Galaxy or Cadbury Dairy Milk from the UK. The Australian ones are okay in a pinch. Not very cool, I know. Red Lindor Balls, and I've never been known to turn down a Ritter Sport. I've never even seen Valrhona for sale....but if it ever crosses my path, I'm on it like white on rice!