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[tarigwaemir]

Haste Street, on the Feast of St. Hilary of Poitiers

Happy birthday, sub_divided! (Er, it's still your birthday in my time zone at least...)

The discussion period for mystery has begun at bibliophages: summary of links.

Read and comment! sub_divided has a long post on Dorothy Sayers; I know that many of you are fans of Lord Peter Wimsey, so go and share your thoughts. As for me, I read Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy and Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table (and include a repost of my rant on Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice). And jaebi_lit has just posted with her review of Dorothy Sayers' Unnatural Death.

I forgot to link to the pinch-hit I wrote for yuletide: Mad Lord Time (for Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere). I wrote the last half on the day it was due, right after coming home at 9:30 PM. I don't think I've ever submitted a fic so riddled with errors before, but I'm still rather proud of it because it actually has a plot. A real plot! With a resolution! (Never mind the rushed pacing and abrupt transitions.)

I keep meaning to write more about my holiday break, most of which I spent either at church or with church people, all the way down to my last day at home, where my mother and I ate lunch with the rest of the Legio Mariae prayer group she belongs to. I eavesdropped on their conversation, which covered such topics as How to Keep Employees in Line, What the Chinese Think of Koreans, and the Trials and Tribulations of Running a Nail Salon (complete with profanity and not-so-politically correct comments on race relations), in addition to the usual gossip. My mother kept asking me if I was bored, but I think I was more entertained by the conversation than she was.

Today, after repeated nagging from my mother about how I should make my own kimchi instead of buying it from the store, I finally attempted 깍두기 (radish kimchi). 깍두기 being much easier than the usual 배추김치 (cabbage kimchi), which is what people normally think of as standard kimchi. I also made 콩나물국 (bean sprout soup), which wins the prize for being the easiest soup to make; 깻잎 (seasoned sesame leaves); and stir-fry with oyster mushrooms, enoki and snap beans. -_- Hopefully I've made enough to last me the week. Am making 계란 장조림 right now for lunches and feel pretty exhausted.

Mother asked if I had finally taken to cooking, but no, I just like homecooked Korean food, and there's no way to eat it if I don't make it myself. >_> There's a lot of premade side dishes and frozen foods available at the Korean supermarket, but they don't taste the same. Will put up photos and recipes in the next post for the curious.

Yours &c.

Comments

[squidlet.livejournal.com]

Argh! I'm curious! I love pretty much all of the dishes you mention, but am absolutely clueless on how to go about cooking them. Am reduced to buying store bought kimchi, which usually tastes wrong.

Would also love to see photos, but am /dying/ to know how one makes authenic Korean homecooked food.

[troisroyaumes]

Will make a post with photos and recipes tonight! Not sure if my first attempt at kimchi-making turned out to be an unqualified success--the seasoning is slightly off--but I can at least share my mother's advice on the subject. ^_^ I do document my previous attempts at making homecooked Korean food in previous posts with some photos, some dishes being more successful than others. ^_^;;

I think the key to cooking Korean food is having high-quality ingredients and being willing to try out new combinations (while knowing which combinations tend to work and which don't). Unfortunately, since I like to have an exact recipe to follow, I find this pretty difficult.

[serendip.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about Korean food XD The only problem is Korean produce is such a biyatch to get. I have to get Chinese equivalents, which sometimes don't cut it. Like 두부? *shudder* I feel like even 콩나물 와 다른 (같은) 야채 도 그저그래.....Tho choys are really good for stir fries, you just obv a different result. But cooking is what one does to get good food, be it Korean or otherwise. I think if I learned how to be more efficient, I would enjoy it more.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, I bought a Japanese brand of 두부 and felt rather disappointed. Chinese 두부 tends to be too firm. I buy most of my produce from Berkeley Bowl though, which is supposed to have Asian owners but isn't specifically Korean or Asian, and so far I haven't been too disappointed. Except with 고추. Why is it impossible to get good 고추? It takes me nearly forty minutes to get to the nearest Korean supermarket by bus, and the produce there isn't very fresh at all (the disadvantage of no longer living in an area with a large Korean-American community), but they do have good 두부 and frozen 만두, which is what I usually buy there.

Actually, a lot of the produce sold in Korean supermarkets in Flushing is either grown locally or imported from China. 성당 아줌마 said that the boats landing in New Jersey are as full of illegal immigrants from China as they are of illegally imported produce. XD (I heard such hilarious comments, by the way, about one of the supermarket CEOs--was it 한양 or 한아름?--that recently declared bankruptcy. Apparently, America is the land of opportunity because you can get away with declaring bankruptcy here without having the 사체업자 beating down your door and harassing your family.) My mother actually prefers to buy some things at Chinese supermarkets because it's "fresher" but obviously, Korean supermarkets are more convenient.

I think I would enjoy cooking more if I was more inclined to experiment, but since I have to eat whatever I make, I prefer to remain cautious and stick to what I know. But I've been trying to branch out and make more side dishes these days.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ^___^

I think you should also link to Charmian's post since it was inspired by the discussion. Maybe in an ETA, or something?

[troisroyaumes]

Good point! Have edited the post with a link. ^_^

[derlirum.livejournal.com]

I definitely admire your willingness and ability to cook Korean food. Wish I could be like that.

Frankly -- and this sounds horrible -- I don't stock many Korean ingredients at my apartment because the smell of some of those ingredients waft through my entire apartment and permeate into my clothes. I don't mind the smell, but I KNOW my white co-workers will. And I can't afford to dry clean my work clothes all the time. T___T Hence, my repeated refusals to my mom to take home kimchi and other homemade dishes -- which disappoints her, I know. Yes, I'm an evil Korean-American to deny my heritage like that. (But my refrigerator is old; it can't contain the smell!)

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm an evil Korean-American to deny my heritage like that.

Hey, one step past you--I'm an evil Korean-American who cooks Italian food, not Korean, and I think it does bother my parents some. I hear you on the food-smells, though--I like garlic a lot and so frequently wonder if I reek of it at work. Hard to say without going up and asking someone, though! :-/

[troisroyaumes]

But your Italian food is definitely delicious! XD I would like to be adventurous and cook other types of food too, but I'm a little intimidated by the need to stock up on a whole different set of spices and base ingredients. >_>

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Thanks! For me, it has less to do with adventurous and more to do with when and where I learned how to cook--I learned how to cook when I was on an excavation in Rome and living with an Italian-American flatmate, so I learned Italian food. Romanesco cooking is also strongly associated with happiness and friendship in my head, so it's only logical that I would gravitate toward that anyway.

whole different set of spices and base ingredients. >_>

I think it's especially difficult if you're cooking for one, as that restricts you in terms of ingredients and perishables in general. I'd like to learn how to cook hanshik, especially the stuff I grew up eating, except there's very little overlap with the foodstuffs and herbs I have in my kitchen for pastas.

Btw, re: your comment on gochu above--are you looking for gochu or gochuggaru? I have a tupperware full of gochuggaru that I'm not using, so if you want it I can bring it to Mahler 1. It's the kind my mum uses for cooking hanshik.

[troisroyaumes]

Just 고추, the green kind. Thanks for the offer though!

[derlirum.livejournal.com]

I, sadly, have a REALLY sensitive nose. Just the other day, as I was crossing the threshold of my office, I noticed a weird smell -- and discovered that it was the varnish on my bookcase that was making that smell.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Me, too! I become acclimated to the stuff I use a lot, though, so it's hard to tell if it would bother other people. Garlic in particular is difficult, because I love how it smells and tastes and so although I can smell it at a distance, I have a hard time telling if it would be less pleasant to other people.

[troisroyaumes]

Haha, well, this will sound equally horrible, but I really couldn't care less what other people think of the smell. My college roommate made an oblique complaint about the smell of kimchi permeating the food in the fridge last year, but I didn't feel apologetic at all. I think the problem is, I'm so inured to the smell of kimchi (and other strong-smelling Korean food) that I don't really notice it. (I also don't have a very sensitive nose when it comes to food...I only get bothered by artificial scents.) So far, my current roommate, who is white, hasn't objected, and most of the people I've met in science academia are enthusiastic about Asian food (my last P.I. even brought kimchi and natto to lab lunches, even though she's German).

I do refrain from bringing kimchi to lunch though. ^_^

[derlirum.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I care about what other people think -- both because of my profession and because I'm just made that way. XD (Plus, I think I can sympathize with people who dislike strange or noxious smells as I have such a sensitive nose myself. I get nauseous when I smell something that I personally find disagreeable.)

As for all those people who don't object to the smell of kimchi, I wonder if it depends on geography? I notice that people in the Northwest (Washington and Oregon) don't have that much exposure to a wide range of foreign/exotic foods. I mean, there are Indian restaurants, Pakistani restaurants, Thai restaurants, etc., but not many Korean restaurants. (I know of only one in downtown Portland and three in Beaverton and one in Tigard.) In California, there are a ton of different restaurants.

(By the way, have you gone to "Brother's" Korean restaurant on Geary in San Francisco yet? If you're hankering for some grilled meat, it's a good place to go. I can't remember whether there were any Korean grill restaurants in Berkeley, though.)

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

I just like homecooked Korean food, and there's no way to eat it if I don't make it myself. >_>

Seriously, homemade is nearly always better, or at least tastes "right" in a way that no one else's cooking does. I was looking up recipes for yookgaejang this weekend and all of them called for gosari (what is this?) and kongnamul. I thought, there is no gosari or kongnamul in the yookgaejang my mom makes! What is this strange "traditional" yookgaejang you speak of? It's not any yookgaejang I've eaten! *grumpy*

[troisroyaumes]

My mother uses 고사리 but not 콩나물. Maybe a regional difference? Yes, I'm a little hesitant to trust recipes from non-Korean sources (and most of the recipes on Naver are for weird variations on traditional food as well). I usually just call my mother and pester her for details, but I've already realized that I don't seem to season things in the same way that my mother does. ::sighs::

Hm, 고사리 is a type of 나물. According to this site, its American name is fernbrake. I'm rather fond of 고사리 actually (it has brown, slightly fleshy, chewy sprouts), although the way my mother makes it is different from the recipe given in that site. I think there's a much better picture (and recipe) here.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links! I realized after seeing the pictures that I have seen gosari as banchan before, although I still maintain that it has no proper place in yookgaejang of the sort my mum makes (which may very well not be proper yookgaejang at all!).

most of the recipes on Naver are for weird variations on traditional food as well

As food supplies become globalized and freed from the restrictions of geography and season, I think it becomes increasingly hard to say what is "proper" Korean food or not. My mum grew up dirt poor in Suwon, and so her ideas of cooking probably have less to do with tradition and more to do with what is immediately available, and then that idea of hanshik becomes further distorted when it's passed down to her kids. Or something like that.

[troisroyaumes]

That makes a lot of sense, and really, there's nothing to say which is the more traditional dish or not. I mean, my mother's descriptions of her mother's cooking is pretty similar to yours--very simple with not too many different types of ingredients--which makes sense because she also grew up poor in the city. But my mother only really learned how to cook after she was married, and my father's family is from the country, where there are many more available ingredients, so my mother's cooking is an amalgam of the tastes that she's used to from her childhood and the style of cooking she learned from my paternal grandmother. My mother's 육계장 for example is still pretty different from restaurant 육개장: she uses 무 and 도라지 (bellflower root) in addition to 고사리.

Plus, since Korean cooking is mostly about using what ingredients are immediately available, no one can really say whether your mother's 육개장 is more or less traditional. I mean, all that's required for it to qualify as 육개장 (at least if you go by the name) is a spicy soup with meat. ^_^

[derlirum.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think a number of Korean restaurants use "go-sa-ri" and "kong-na-mul" in their "yoo-gae-jang." (Darn, I wish I had the Korean alphabet program right now.) At least, the Korean restaurants I've visited have put these vegetables in.

Strange thing, I didn't like "go-sa-ri" for a long time. Now I love it. (Maybe because of those days of (forced) labor, going to the mountains with my aunt and stumbling through the bracken to find "go-sa-ri." Though, admittedly, I was a kid at the time and I thought it was fun -- like going on some expedition or treasure hunt. Then I realized later that those days at Mt. Rainier weren't simply for fun -- dried "go-sa-ri" went for $10 or $15 a pound (or more) in those days. I was being exploited, I tell you!)

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

At least, the Korean restaurants I've visited have put these vegetables in.

I think the restaurant-cooking vs. home-cooking difference is at the heart of my confusion, because while gosari and kongnamul in yookgaejang may be proper/traditional, my mum never did that. The only things in her yookgaejang are gogi, pa, sesame seed oil, some toasted sesame seeds, and gochugaru (and rice, of course!), so it probably isn't proper yookgaejang--but it's what I think of when I think about yookgaejang. :)