Well, not all kimchi.  Just one of the hundreds of distinguishable varieties out there.  But hey!  It’s the important one!  The most basic of all baechu kimchi is going the way of the dodo.

Well, sort of.  Last year there was a glut, so farmers cut back on how much they planted.  Then, we got hit with one lousy weather system after another, and voila!  There’s not enough napa cabbage to go ’round, a single head can now cost more than 10,000 won.  Did you hear that?  WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

They’ll be no gimjang this year, kiddies. It’s canceled! St. Saeur Kraut won’t be visiting and leaving magical gifts of spicy cabbage in your gomushin, and there won’t be a single leaf left to decorate your gimjang tree.  Worse yet, restaurants may start charging for kimchi!

But as in all times of trouble and scarcity, Koreans can look to President Lee Myeong-bak to lead the way.  Has there ever been a leader so truly in touch with his people?  In sympathy for their plight, he’s switching to kimchi made with western-style round cabbage until the crisis abates.  What a guy!

What is being done to protect us all from the terror?  Well, we’re going to start importing Chinese cabbage from . . . uh, China (fancy that!), even though it may not match our unique body chemistry (or contain dangerous parasites.  Same-same)

Those of you with a survivalist frame of mind, who have already stockpiled canned food and water in preparation for nuclear winter can try your own radical approach and grow your own on the roof of your bomb shelter.

In order to help you through the coming dark days and ease your hunger, we’d like to point you to a few recipes for 깍두기 (cubed radish) from Aeri’s Kitchen and Wandering Chopsticks, and Maangchi’s 열무 물김치.  Also, for quite posibbly the most comprehensive rundown of kimchi commotion ever, check out the Marmot’s entry.  Good luck!

Top seven gross Korean dishes selected by foreign staff at the Korea Herald

All we can say is that intern reporter Ryu Jeong-hyun needs to learn what actually constitutes news.  Hint:  polling your foreign colleagues about what Korean foods wig them out isn’t it.

mmmmmmmm! 순대!

For the record, the offending foods were 홍어 (fermented skate), 번데기 (silkworm larvae), 닭발 (chicken feet), 산낙지 (“live” octopus), 순대 (blood sausage), 보신탕 (dog soup), and 곱창 (intestines).

Fatman would like to point out that lots of Koreans don’t like or eat these foods.  Hongeo is a taste acquired only through much endurance.  Most people never acquire it, and that’s fine.  But it doesn’t make it “gross.”

Beondaegi-eating is a generational divide, with older people enjoying it more than the young . . . but young people have grown up in a totally different culinary and economic landscape.  It’s a nostalgia food for many people.

Surprise!  Chicken feet is a food with international legs.  Apparently the Korea Herald doesn’t have anybody from, say, the Philippines, Africa, the Caribbean, the American south, or . . . well, most of the rest of Asia.

어머나!  Sundae is made with pig intestine?  You mean, just like virtually every other kind of sausage?!?*  And it’s not like people don’t eat blood sausage elsewhere, like . . . oh, most of western Europe.

Fatman could write all day about how these so-called strange foods actually can be found around the world in various forms.  But the real problems is that acting like a very narrow sampling of (we’re guessing white, western, probably North American) foreigners can be used to show what foreigners as a group think about Korean food is annoying.  It’s stupid because it exoticizes Korean food and turns foreigners into a monolithic group.

News flash:  Poorly researched, half-assed articles are annoying.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, Fatman has an insatiable craving for sundae . . .

*caveat – most sundae, and indeed most sausage nowadays, uses synthetic wrappers instead of intestines . . . but mostly to save on cost.  High quality stuff is still stuffed inside pig stuffing.

The Cafe formerly known as Sobahn has reopened as Bibigo*. Along with Zen Kimchi, Fatman was involved in some early test marketing for both Cafe Sobahn and the new Bibigo concept. A concept that was really, roundly panned for having a silly name. Apparently, once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your marketing.
And it’s a darned shame.

The food isn’t too bad. It’s got a very corporate, packaged taste, but the veggies are fresh and the ingredients have been reasonably well thought out. For mains, there’s a choice of regular bibimbap, dolsot bibimbap, or the salad-heavy “bibigo.” For each of these you can chose from sprouted brown rice, white rice, black rice, or barley, and from a variety of sauces. The sauces are where things first start to get tricky, and show the weaknesses . . . do you want gochujang, ssamjang, lemon . . . or is it citrus soy? And is that sesame sauce green? What on earth is a green sesame??? Does that look green to you? If so, please adjust your monitor.

You can also chose to have beef, chicken, or tofu added to your bibimbap for an extra 1,000 won, making this a moderately expensive plate of food.
Things are just as confusing on their “tapas” menu. Leaving aside how on earth you can pass of any of these foods as tapas, the translations that have been done on this side of the menu are either careless or deceptive. The Korean menu is reasonably clear, although you could take issue with calling a stack of gareddeok and sweet potato covered in a candy-sweet gochujang sauce “ddeokbokkum” . . . but the English menu is completely nonsensical. What on earth are “Silver Noodles” ~ would you guess 잡채? Fatman wouldn’t. And 누룽지 셀러드 does not sizzle, thus negating the idea of calling a dish “sizzling salad.”

This wouldn’t be such a big problem if the main point of Bibigo weren’t a lynchpin of CJ Food’s grand plan to globalize Korean food. Perhaps the American and Chinese renditions will be different in tone, but the Korean flagship is far too upscale in tone and price to be accepted as “fast food” the way they’re aiming to join the market. Also, careless, stupid translations like “silver noodles,” “sizzling salad,” and “green sesame sauce” for products that aren’t silver, don’t sizzle, and aren’t green is going to damage them in the end. Other products aren’t explained enough for an outside audience (such as “ssam sauce” or even worse, “kohot” for gochujang) that isn’t familiar with Korean food. Even their English page isn’t terribly well edited. How can they expect to succeed overseas if they ignore the advice of people who know the industry, and then ignore basics like accurate descriptions of their very own food?
The food isn’t bad, and the dining space in Gwanghwamun is attractive . . . but without some quick moves, all CJ’s efforts to turn this into an international chain are going to be for naught. It doesn’t matter how healthy it is (not very, under all those sauces), fast (only if you’re getting bibimbap – tapas and side items all took time), or well-designed your interior is (although Sobahn’s was nicer).  Skimp on things like solid test marketing and editing, and you’re left with an overpriced K-town mall food court restaurant.

In other words, not so bad for a quick lunch downtown, but don’t hold your breath for the Bibigo chain to sweep the outside world and become the next McD’s.
To get there, head west from the south point of Gwanghwamun, towards the Hammering Man sculpture. Bibigo is on the ground floor of the Gwanghwamun Officia building, where Cafe Sobahn used to be. Prices for main dishes start at 7,000.

*Only the Gwanghwamun branch. Die-hard Cafe Sobahn fans can still get their fix on the campus of Seoul National University.

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries held a public contest to develop an official English-language nickname for makgeolli, and last week it announced the winner: “Drunken Rice.” In second and third place were “Makcohol” and “Markelixir.”

The ministry said in release earlier that the nickname should be easy and fun for foreigners to pronounce, and pledged to use the winning name in its marketing activities.

Soon after the results were released, however, the ministry’s Web site was bombarded with postings criticizing the move.

“Unlike in Korea, where alcohol drinking is generously accepted by society, the English word ‘drunken’ conveys considerably negative connotation. Besides, would you find it easy to understand wine if its origin countries called it ‘drunken grape’?” wrote Choi Hae-su.

Another citizen, Lee Jae-hong, wrote, “I live in Japan and nine out of 10 Japanese here know makgeolli as it is. Why are you trying to give it an English nickname when it is gradually gaining recognition?”

In response to the outcry, the ministry backed off, saying it won’t adopt the nickname after all, since “the event was meant to fan the makgeolli craze further among the general public,” according to a government official.

Instead, the Presidential Council on National Branding will come up with a simplified romanization of the word by the end of June, the official added, without providing details.

Why on earth they want to waste their time coming up with an alternate to the already well-established romanization systems, Fatman does not wish to know.  We’re exhausted with all the tomfoolery already.   But three cheers for the Netizens!

ORIGINAL POST:

Dear God, have mercy on us all.  Whoever is behind this deserves a mighty smiting.

Makgeolli is henceforth to be known as “Drunken Rice.”

This is so many shades of wrong Fatman doesn’t even know where to begin.  The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MOFAFF) apparently thinks that a) foreigners (read here, westerners) are stupid and b) this will make it easy for those poor stupid foreigners.

Why is this such a dumb idea?  Let us count the ways:

• First, the name fails at the most basic level by failing to communicate that the item at hand is a drink.  Seriously, “drunken rice” indicates that it is in fact, some kind of rice.  That would be FOOD.   Y’know, chopsticks/knife and fork/fingers as major route to consumption, instead of something you drink from a cup.  Kind of a big difference. Furthermore, there’s already a well known Chinese dish called “drunken chicken” so we’re even further away from communicating to non-Koreans what the hell 막걸리 actually is.  Epic, EPIC FAIL!
• The fact that the new nickname is in (bad) English just demonstrates that the agencies involved are too wrapped up in marketing to western tourists, despite the fact that a huge hunk of the people who clamor for Korean food products and come here for tourism are other Asians.  The biggest current market for makgeolli outside Korea is . . . Japan.  And you know what name the drink is known under there?  The drink that has seen a major expansion of its market there?  マッコリ。 Makkori,  i.e. the same exact word.  Somehow, Fatman doesn’t think they’re thinking of the Japanese and their lust for ドファンケンライス (doraanken raisu)。
• The Korean word is too hard for those poor stupid white foreigners and their too long-tongues?  Because if we look at the vast variety of foods with foreign origins floating around America, Canada, England, etc., you’ll see that the vast majority have retained their original, non-English names.  Pizza, sushi, pad thai, ratatouille, pho, masala, schnitzel, challa, borsch, tangine . . . all of these have distinctly non-English names, and oftentimes non-obvious pronunciations for monolingual English speakers.  And yet, nobody is trying to give them “easier” pronunciations (ala “topokki” instead of ddeokpokki) or fake names that somebody just made up to be cute and patronizing.
• There’s a reason for that ~ If you head to a restaurant in France and ask for “Rat Yummy” they’re not going to have a clue what you mean.  And Fatman is willing to bet that if a tourist shows up and asks around for where they can get “drunken rice,”  nobody is going to know what on earth they’re after.  Yes, “makgeolli” may be a bit hard for your average foreigner to figure out how to say by looking at the word in a guide book.  But they’ll still get a heck of a lot further with a badly pronounced “mack-goaly” than they will with “drunken rice.”  Koreans have been calling it 막걸리 for quite some time now, and Fatman doesn’t think the local population is expected to make this switch, so what’s the point?  It does no good to teach foreigners to use a word Koreans don’t know, use, or understand.

This is obviously something that has not been thought out through all the way.  The problem is that Korea can’t afford to keep making these kinds of flubs as it tries to market itself internationally.  There needs to be a real, serious consideration of what people mean when they talk about globalizing Korean food.  Right now, the phrase gets tossed around and used for bigwigs to fund ridiculous projects that make it look like they’re doing something grand when they’re not.  But in the end, nobody has reallyconcientiously worked through what Koreans actually hope to gain from globalizing their cuisine, and what this means in concrete terms.  Until the government and associated agencies really put some thought into this, we’re going to continue to see silly, empty gestures like this.

Tip o’ the fat hat to Paul Ajossi

FatManSeoul is going vegan!

That’s right . . . there will be no more of this:

or this:

and certainly none of this:

But you will be seeing a lot more of this:

and this:

and this:

God knows, this will never cross our plate again! Just looking at it gives us the willies:

So be prepared to eat your veggies as we re-brand ourselves . . . check this space soon for VegManSeoul!

Ya’ll remembered today is April Fool’s Day, right?

from demotivateus.com

I am not one to sound the alarm unless disorider, destruction and death is imminent – but in this case I fear it is. As you will know, I am one damned tough cookie, but just one hour ago I was reduced to snivelling, mewling and weeping like a pouffe.

“What!” you cry. “What could possibly have been behind this demolition of your manhood?”

The culprit was a new product available at (ahem) Burger King: The “Angry Whopper.” This was advertized as spicey, but seriously – how spicey could an American fast food product be?

The answer is in: Murderously. A few seconds after biting into this innocuous looking snack, a hellish, sulphurous smoke began to curl up to the roof of my mouth. Then it detonated deep in my gut: Napalm.

No joke – this is THE hottest damned thing I have eaten in Korea. Ever.

Of course we had to try this delicious damnation for ourselves, and so off we jaunted to the nearest BK. We read up on the burger at Serious Eats, but found to our great dismay that a different form of the burger is available in East Asia than the rest of the world. In case you’re curious, this is what they get:

we stole this from Serious Eats

That would be a whopper topped with spicy crispy onions, jalapeños, pepper jack cheese, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, and spicy Angry Sauce. Mmmm. However, what you get in Korea is this:

from My Daily

That would be a whopper with angry sauce and angry mushrooms and some presumably pissed off peppers. Somewhere there’s a greenhouse filled with sadistic farmers torturing little mushrooms and pickeld peppers into become rage machines, we suppose.

The problem is that this burger just ain’t that spicy. Don’t get Fatman wrong ~ it’s got a definite kick from the sauce, and there’s a few devious little peppers packed away. But overall? Meh. There’s kimchi jjigae spicier than this burger. We wanted to be inspired to a murderous rage, tears of anger and tastebud betrayal rolling down our chubby cheeks as we gasped for air and desperately chugged down soda to quench the fire. We wanted a burger that would make 불닭 (bul dalk – fire chicken) fade away. What we got was a sort of mild burning sensation. Our nose didn’t even run. It was sad. Mayo and tomato and condiments helped tamp down the burn, but even without them it really was just kindof spicy, instead of deathly.

The burger itself starts with the basics: Sesame bun, wilting lettuce, ketchup, tomato, and patty, with an additional bit of jalapeños, some small, limp mushrooms, and a splash of spicy sauce. But the new ingredients don’t pack enough heat to make it really daunting eating ~ unless you’re regularly burned by typical Korean food, you won’t have any problem biting into this puppy. Chiliheads beware: This burger will only make you angry with its lack of punch. It’s not mild, by any means, but nor is it a kiss of fire that can never be put out.