Korean School Lunch in Photos #2

Sorry, it's been awhile since I've written.  I started a hip-hop dance class which has been consuming some of the time I used to designate to keeping up on my blog.  Not a very good excuse but whatever.

So here is the second installation of my series of school lunch posts:
Top left: Cabbage kimchi.  If you're surprised by this just don't be.  I've had conversations before regarding whether or not there is one thing that I could eat for every meal everyday.  I guess if I had to pick something I bet I could eat potatoes everyday for every meal.  Even more so than kimchi they are extremely versatile so I could cook them in tons of different ways.  I bet you're snickering because the girl from Idaho says she could eat potatoes for every meal everyday aren't you?  Not funny.  Although I do love kimchi and have talked about it on various occasions on different posts, I know that I could not eat kimchi for breakfast.  I tried it at orientation and it does not make a very nice side dish to my bowl of frosted flakes.

Top right: Tteok.  Pronounced like "duck," in English this is called "rice cake."  Rice cakes come in many shapes and forms.  This tteok is prepared with steamed glutinous rice flour and then rolling into balls.  Red bean paste is put into the middle, which gives it a sweet flavor.  It is then rolled in colored and sweetened dried bean crumbs.  This is just one of the many "creative" ways Koreans eat rice.  I say "creative" with quotation marks because although, yes, it's a bit innovative, I don't necessarily like it or want to be eating rice for lunch in fifty-million different ways.  One, I don't need all those damn carbs and two, I don't particularly like rice that much.  When I first got to Korea I didn't mind tteok and ate it whenever any Korean shared it with me (which is often).  Now whenever I get tteok (which is still often)  I take a bite, act like its good, hide it and throw it away.  It's too late to tell anyone at my school that I don't like it.  I've already accepted and "eaten" way too much.  Plus I heard that it is literally a crime in Korea to not like tteok (like kimchi) and that you will go to prison for life if anyone hears you say it.

Bottom left:  This is a dried tofu soup.  I'm not sure what it's called as I'm going off of memory for this post because I lost my notes.  It's pretty much just pieces of dried tofu and some sort of spice without much flavor.  This soup doesn't have much flavor at all as it accompanies the next dish and is used as a way to even out the full flavor of the other dish.

Bottom right: Bibimbap.  This is one of Korea's signature dishes to foreigners who have eaten Korean food outside of Korea.  It is also very widely eaten amongst Koreans.  In fact, the first time I was exposed to bibimbap was during orientation.  The city where our orientation was held, Jeonju, is renowned in Korea for having the best bibimbap in the country.  I really enjoy this dish and I believe many other expats here to as well.  The dish is essentially a bunch of mixed vegetables served on top of rice and topped off with chili pepper paste.  The veggies used in this bibimbap are zucchini, carrots, bean sprouts, spinach, and mushrooms.  As most of you back home know, I do love my veggies.  This dish is super healthy and filling and can be prepared with whatever vegetables you like.  There is also a version of this dish that is served hot. The rice becomes a bit fried and it's really tasty.

When watching Korean students eat all these vegetables it really amazes me how some Americans defend despicable school lunches by arguing that kids are picky and won't eat vegetables.  If this is universally true of kids around the world then why will Korean kids eat it?  I guess it could be because they don't have a choice at lunch and they can't bring their own.  If this is the case then I would argue that maybe that's how it should be done back home.  Obviously it is possible to give kids healthy, unprocessed, fresh food.  Why do we do it so much differently in the U.S.?  Just something to ponder...

Korean School Lunch in Photos #1

I'm running out of blog post ideas since everything is becoming so normal in Korea.  In the beginning it was super easy to come up with ideas for blog posts since everything was so new and exciting.  Now it's definitely harder to notice the subtleties in Korean culture that once popped out like the first pimple on an adolescent boy's face.  Since I first got here though, Korean food has been a subject that has popped up time and again from people back home.  I, just as friends and family back in the U.S., am really interested in Korean food and it helps that I actually enjoy it quite a bit.  I love it's spiciness, which often comes from the use of chili in many Korean dishes.  I also love the taste of fermented soybeans, seaweed, and kimchi which are staples of the Korean diet.

Although I am definitely not a chef nor do I pretend to even have any talent when it comes to cooking, I have become increasingly interested in the art of food since I have been in Korea.  This stems first from my abundance of free time at and after work when I am able to indulge in the beautiful media vomit that is Reality Television.  Since it has been on the air I have been a fan of Top Chef but the current season I am especially fond of.  Second, there is a grave lack of satisfactory foreign cuisine in Daegu and, I would argue, most of Korea in general.  In the past few months I have been scouring my city for good Mexican, Italian, Indian and Thai restaurants because I know that they could possibly, maybe, potentially exist.  I could never seriously think I am going to find that Cajun catfish po' boy that I've been craving or the Ecuadorian food I salivate for. I couldn't bare the let down after having even a glint of hope and finding out that there would be no one even thinking of this idea for the next 20 years.  The few foreign restaurants that I have found and gave the chance though have made me look more critically at food than I ever have before.  But don't expect too much from this.

Now that I've taken care of that I will get to the point.

Since the first lunch I ate and Namduck Elementary School in Daegu, Republic of Korea I have looked differently at school lunch.  I remember being in elementary school and dreading the days they would serve "ribeque" sandwiches.  I swear I would gag as I tried to choke down that unidentifiable "meat" that they put down our throats.  But I lived for the days when a big square of processed cheese and pepperoni pizza was slapped on our trays.  I think this was served at least once a week!  I definitely don't remember school lunch being healthy by any means.  They did have a salad bar but when you have the choice between pizza or the salad bar what do you think an American child is going to pick?  If I did ever eat salad I'm sure I drenched it in ranch dressing anyways to cancel out all of the nutrients I would have gotten from the veggies.  Now I look forward to school lunch, each morning I wonder what surprises I will be chop-sticking into my mouth at 12:10.  Usually lunch is awesome.  Sometimes dishes are served that I'm a little wary about but I try and end up loving.  Every so often there is something that I know to take very little of because I might throw up a little bit in my mouth (it's easier to take a little of something and then not eat any of it than to not take something.  Every coworker at your table will question you).  But these instances are few and far between.  The tasty treats definitely outweigh the dried minnows in syrup.

Because of all these factors I have decided to do a series of posts on the school lunches that I am served and kindly accept for a meager paycheck deduction of around $35 a month.  Less than $2 a meal!  Pretty awesome if you ask me.  And I can eat as much as I want.  Okay, here it goes.  "Korean School Lunch in Photos #1" starts now!

Top left: Cabbage kimchi.  There are many different types of kimchi, the most common being the cabbage kimchi.  "Kimchi" actually just refers to fermented vegetables in Korean cuisine.  The kimchi that is seen here is definitely my favorite.  Some of the ingredients in the sauce are red pepper powder, ginger, garlic, fish sauce and green onions.  You will always find some sort of kimchi served at school lunch and almost every Korean meal that you eat.

Bottom left: "Bap." This is obviously rice.  Rice is served with every school lunch too and like kimchi, is a staple of Korean cuisine.  I am often questioned why I take so little rice at lunch time.  I even take more rice than I know I'm going to eat sometimes just so that I am not pestered by the school chef.

Top middle: "Sook-joo-na-mool"(?)  These are bean sprouts mixed with imitation crab and 'minari' which is Japanese parsley.  Apparently minari is a seasonal herb that is consumed mostly in the spring.  I think my coteacher was trying to point out that spring time is coming and that is why this herb was put into the dish as the dish is most often served without it.  Honestly the dish did not have much flavor at all.  With the main ingredient being bean sprouts you can probably imagine.  I liked that it was healthy but it definitely could have used something to make it more flavorful.

Top right: "Jang-jo-rim"  The school has served this dish a few times since I have been here and I absolutely love it.  It is boiled quail eggs and chunks of pork in soy sauce.  The quail eggs are so much creamier on the inside than chicken eggs.  Plus, the yolk to white ratio is much more even, which I thoroughly enjoy.  The bite-size eggs fit perfectly in your mouth and the pork is tender.  The soy sauce is watered down which is good because it would be much too salty if it wasn't.

Bottom right:  "Soo-je-bi-gook" School lunch is also always served with a soup.  I generally really enjoy Korean soups.  They are usually spicy and brothy and I prefer brothy soups over chunky ones.  The noodles you see in the picture are made from flour and cut in a rectangular shape.  Accompanying the noodles are potatoes, zucchini and green onions.  I was pretty disappointed by this soup.  It had absolutely no flavor.  There was very little seasoning, if any besides salt, added.  The noodles tasted like squares of flavorless dough and the cooked zucchini and potatoes weren't much better.

Overall this was a very average meal.  If it wasn't for the egg and pork dish I wouldn't have been very fond of it as two of the three main dishes were lacking in flavor.  It wasn't an extremely healthy dish compared to others that are served, but it beats by a long shot what I imagine kids are eating in schools and at home back in the U.S.

More to come!
Peace