K-BAP the Ninth

           Hello, K-BAP followers! I think the hot and humid summer weather is now gone for here. It is even cold outside at night-time! Of course, it is natural, right? Today is already the 24th of October. Furthermore, less than 70 days are left for this year. Although it is a bit early to have such thinking, I think now is the time we should start working on ending this year well. Thus, I’m going to work harder to make this K-BAP as such successful blog of this year. In order to achieve that goal, at first, I need to finish the on-going ‘Kinds of Gook’ series.

           Yes! What you are expecting is right! This ninth K-BAP story would be the last series of ‘Kinds of Gook’ story. In the previous story of this series, we talked about Jjigae. In the third story, the ‘Jeon-gol’ would be dealt with. The main directions for cooking ‘Jeon-Gol’ can be explained by these two sentences. At first, put meats, fishes, or vegetables into the special ‘Jeon-gol’ pot. And then, pour some seasoned meat broth into the pot. That’s all. But this simple food has been regarded as the basic food for party in Korea. It is not because the ingredients for this food are special or expensive. ‘Jeon-Gol’ is a kind of quick dish. In other words, you can eat while the dish is still being cooked.

           The difference between ‘Jeon-Gol’ and Gook is there for you. There is a distinction between cooking time and eating time for Gook. When you cook ‘Gook’ or ‘Jjigae’, you should cook this in kitchen and then deliver it to the dining place. However, when you cook ‘Jeon-Gol’, you can cook this in the dining place on the mobile stove. Because of this feature of ‘Jeon-Gol’, everyone attended that meal time could sit together on one table. Therefore they could be much familiar with each other. For that reason, ‘Jeon-Gol’ has been regarded the basic food for party in Korea. I can surely tell that ‘Jeon-Gol’ is typical food of Korean people’s emotion.

           Gook, Jji-gae, and Jeon-gol are the main kinds of soup-like foods. Specifically, there are so many sub-classifications for those foods. It is not easy to say that you know everything of Korean Gook. But, you already got the main concept of gook in Korean food culture. For next K-BAP stories, the series of ‘Kinds of Banchan’ would be dealt with.

Thank you!

- S.Choi -