Hello, K-BAP followers. How have you
been? It is already the last week of September in 2016. It’s been a week from
the last K-BAP Story post about ‘Doen-Jang’. I am sorry. I was a little busy to
study for my university exams last week, so I could not post anything. From now
on, I’ll post 2 to 3 posts every week. Finally for this week’s K-BAP story, I’m
going to give you the third post of Korean traditional sauces series. I don’t
know whether you like the series or not, but I’ll do my best because the sauces
are the most fundamental things in Korean food culture.
Like the other foods of many countries, Korean
foods also need many kinds of sauces. As a third post of sauce series, K-Bap the
Seventh is about one of the most important sauces, ‘Gan-Jang’. Probably, ‘Gan-Jang’
would be the most familiar to U.S. people among Korean sauces. The name of ‘Gan-Jang’
is spelled phonetically. Practically in United States, this sauce is called ‘Soy
sauce’. I’m sure that you have already seen this sauce before. It is being used
in many Chinese and Japanese restaurants. Therefore, you can think that ‘Soy-sauce’
is Japanese or Chinese traditional sauce. However, ‘Soy-sauce’ is derived from
original Korean sauce, ‘Gan-Jang’. Even, ‘Gan-jang’ was listed one of the gift
items for royal wedding in Korean traditional history book, ‘Samguk-Sagi’. Based
on this publication, it is being known that ‘Gan-Jang’ has been used from 6th
Century.
Although the smell and appearance of
those two sauces are similar with each other, there are clear differences between
them. The easiest difference to be found is the taste of those sauces. Soy sauce is sweet while ‘Gan-Jang’ is more salty than Soy sauce. It is true that soy
sauce is being used for more foods than ‘Gan-Jang’ because the taste of soy
sauce is less stimulating. However, if you try foods seasoned by ‘Gan-Jang’,
you might think it is better than general soy sauces. The essential difference
between those sauces is the main ingredient of those. The main ingredient of
soy sauce is the dough made of flour and bean powder. On the other hand,
fermented bean is the main ingredient of ‘Gan-Jang’. You are familiar with the
ingredient of ‘Gan-Jang’, right? Yes, it is also the main ingredient of ‘Doen-Jang’.
In the process of making ‘Doen-Jang’, salty and black liquid is naturally
formed. That salty liquid is ‘Gan-Jang’.
Until now, I’ve posted stories of the
most basic sauces of Korean food through 3 posts of K-BAP story. I hope that those
stories about ‘Gochu-Jang’, ‘Doen-Jang’, and ‘Gan-Jang’ can help you to be more
familiar with Korean food culture. Thus, for the future K-BAP stories, intensive
course of Korean sauce would be posted. Thank you
- S.Choi -
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