A New Food

Before leaving America to come to Korea, everybody that I spoke with had to impart some form of wisdom or advice to me about how life was going to be different or change drastically. I do most literally mean EVERYBODY. Obviously, some more than others, but nonetheless, somehow everybody thought that they had some serious insight into what life may potentially be like. All of the advice (so far) varied in the degrees of accuracy, but there are just some things that need to be lived to understand, because nobody could have prepared me for this.

Since arriving, the most noticeable difference between life in America and life in Korea has been the food. Up until now, my experiences were rather tame and very “American”, if I may. I’ve eaten beef patties with rice and macaroni salad, barbeque pork (basically hot dogs in BBQ sauce), beer battered pork chops, noodles with a General Tso’s sauce (delicious) and even fast food chicken patties. Everything had a very unique taste, but it was literally the same foods from America, just prepared differently. Not this time.

After getting to my school early for a PTA meeting (Parent/Teachers Association for those who are out of the loop) on Thursday morning, the President, Seung, Bella and I all went out to lunch. Now what must be understood before I continue, is that I will try anything. I am in Korea for the first time, and everything is, expectedly, new and different and I am willing to give it a shot…no matter what. In fact, I’ve found myself thinking many times already, “you’ve come this far and it’s not going to kill you, so down the hatch.” We drove ten minutes to a restaurant, parked the car and went inside.

Obviously, at this point I still have no idea what we are about to eat, because nothing is in English. And because Seung ordered for me, my first glimpse of what I am about to indulge myself in occurs when it’s placed in front of me. It was a large bowl with red-ish broth that had something large floating in it. I saw everyone else fishing out the floating object and placing it on a separate plate to then prod and pick at with chopsticks. I followed suit, except they gave me two forks instead. Why two? I don’t know. Maybe I was supposed to use the forks like salad tongs, but one would have worked fine.

What I found was the vertebrae of a pig. I will repeat and simplify, pig spine. All my life I didn’t even know the vertebrae was edible. Regardless, what they did, I followed. It tasted a lot like the dark meat of a thanksgiving turkey would taste, only darker. The broth was very spicy with green vegetables floating around, which I assume was to add taste to the pig spine. All in all, it wasn’t terrible (the broth was actually quite good). However the bones looked far too morbid to create a heavy appetite. Needless to say, I had trouble finishing. Honestly though, the portion size was very large and it wasn’t the taste or look that deterred me from finishing.

Would I have it again? Probably. Stranded on a desert island? Definitely. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was far from being something to shun. I think it was more the darkness of the meat that I didn’t enjoy over the fact that I was eating a spine. Let’s leave it at the idea that I would much rather prefer a hot dog with the works instead. Something tells me that this is beginning of an exponential growth into weird and odd foods. There's no doubt that I'll share all the oddities I consume. Like I said, I will try everything.

Next Update: My first week at school