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.

image from www.meish.org

Now, go bug some other website with your lovey-dovey heart-and-flower chatter  and leave the bitter, the annoyed, the cranky, the romantically disinclined, and everybody else who wants to take a break from your sugared-nonsense holiday to Fatman.

Now that the love-birds have departed, let’s get down to business:  How are you going to spend this crass, commercially driven excuse of a holiday?  The love-birds have booked every fine restaurant, cafe, and hotel room and you’re looking for a place to avoid them anyway.  Fatman has a few suggestions for a romance-free excursion that’ll turn February 14th into a day worth not celebrating.

1)  Seodaemun Prison and Garlic Fried Chicken

Built by the Japanese in 1908,  Seodaemun Prison/ 서대문 형무소 quickly developed a horrific reputation as the Japanese imprisoned, tortured, and executed members of the independence movement.  The prison now functions as a museum, and visitors can see displays of photos, documents, and artifacts from the period alongside some very gruesome displays featuring animatronics, all overlaid with a disturbing soundtrack of people being tortured.

If a stroll through these walls doesn’t kill the romantic mood, nothing will.  This place makes Alcatraz look like summer camp.

Assuming you’re not to depressed to eat, Fatman recommends you stroll on down towards Seodaemun Station.  About a block before you reach the station proper, there’s a small cluster of chicken hofs where you can slump into a chair and order up a plate of fried chicken.  And, because you won’t even be able to contemplate kissing anyone after all you’ve just seen, you might as well make it garlic chicken.   For the uninitiated, garlic chicken in Korea is not made by adding a little bit of garlic to the batter.  It is made by mincing an entire hectare’s worth of garlic crop and piling the lot on top of hot, greasy fried chicken to make its own vampire-slaying sauce.   It won’t matter how much beer you pour down your throat, either – it won’t wash away the tragedy of Seodaemun Prison or get rid of your garlic-breath.

2) Gyeongdong Oriental Medicine Market & Offal

whatcha gonna do about it, Wikipedia?

Seoul is famous for its large traditional markets like those at Namdaemun and Dongdaemun, but Gyeongdong market is a little off the beaten path unless you’re ordering up some hanyak (한약:  traditional Korean medicine).  The first thing you’ll notice is the overwhelming and distinctive smell of herbs as hundreds of vendors hawk everything from ginseng to deer antlers to dried mushrooms to pickled centipedes.  Traditional medicine in Korea involves all sorts of complex potions meant to help balance the body and bring health, and you can spend facinationg hours among all the myriad fruits, flowers, herbs, roots, and animal parts that help constitute the medicines at the disposal of Korean hanuisa (한의사:  traditional Korean medical doctor).  Who knows?  Maybe one of them can mix up a(n anti) love potion for you out of those millipedes and dried lizards.

After you’ve picked up a bag of beondaegi to boil up at home, time for some grub (pun intended.) It’s gopchang time, baby! Roll up to one of these grill joints with as many of your completely non-romantic friends as you can and sit down to a big ‘ol grill full of stomach, liver, heart, and everything else you’d normally chuck out of a cow when you make your burger. Intestines are a specialty, much loved for their chewy texture. While it might seem strange to be chowing down on things thrown out in most countries, gopchang have a really wonderful deep meaty flavor to them you don’t get from normal cuts of flesh, and offer a much greater range of textures. Some places sauce ‘em up with a bright gochu-based sauce, but this is anti-valentines day, and you should stay away from sauciness and focus on the guts. Glorious, wonderful, decidedly non-romantic guts. You’ll need that kind of intestinal fortitude to get through the day.

3) Seoul Foreigner’s Cemetery & Chicken Feet

image blatantly stolen from the Marmot's Hole because his pictures rock

Cemeteries are already pretty low on the list of places for lovebirds to flit, but this one outdoes even the normal graveyard by having been the centerpiece of a bitter dispute between churches. The cemetery was founded in 1890 when King Gojeong heard the shocking news that the foreigners were about to bury somebody inside the city walls (a very big no-no!) and so gave over some land just outside the gates. In the ensuing 120 some-odd years a veritable who’s who of foreigners have been buried there, including Ernest Bethell, Homer Hulbert, Mary Scranton, and many an Underwood. Changes in laws put the ownership in doubt, and the smaller but older foreigner congregation that had been conducting services in a chapel on the grounds found itself in a nasty dragged-out legal conflict with the newer and larger Korean congregation over who should administer and control the land. The Korean government decided neither should have the chapel, but the Korean church controls the cemetery itself, and stirred up even more controversy by threatening to remove the graves of non-missionaries who it didn’t feel were up to snuff.

Seeing as this has given you plenty to chew on, go find a place to chew on some dalkbal (닭발: chicken feet). Be sure and get the kind with the bones in, both as a way to add flavor and textural interest to what would otherwise seem merely chewy and as a way to remind yourself of what you’ve just spent all afternoon walking around and over.

4) Tapgol Park and Hongeo

image from Seoul Selections

The March 1st Movement got its start at this famous park, and it’s not a bad place for you to start out your revolt against the holiday. It’s connection with the independence movement has made it a popular spot for protests, so maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of violent police/protester clashes. Or at least noisy ones. If that fails, spend some time hanging out with the endless legions of old dudes who hang out playing baduk, gossiping, and (reportedly) hooking up.   True, it’s also picturesque and holds important national treasures like the 10-story Wongaksaji Sipcheung Seoktap (national treasure number 2, baby!), but we’re sure that remembering the violent repression of the independence movement by Japanese police in 1919 will keep you in the appropriately sober frame of mind, no matter how much soju is being downed by the cheerfully chatting 할아버지 around you.

Now that you’re all sobered up, how about something that usually needs a little alcoholic push to seem palatable?

There is nothing, NOTHING on the planet that will ever kill a budding romance, life-long attraction, or contemplation of a meaningless fling faster than the ripe scent of fermented skate, pickled in its own excretions. This Jeolla specialty has a distinctive stink of ammonia so strong that at least one of our acquaintances had his significant other boot him and his clothes to the curb until the stink diminished . . . and as far as we can tell, part of his wardrobe was eventually burned. Hongeo smells and tastes something like a freshly scrubbed urinal, only more potent. Speaking of potent, some people claim it’ll make you a bit high. We can’t verify that, but we will say that the fragrance will cling to you and everything you own for days afterward, until your pores simply ooze out the scent of shark pee while you are left completely and utterly alone. It may be only for the adventurous, but the taste is addictive and the idea of being left by your lonesome is just what you’re looking for today, right?

The organizer of the party, Joe MacPherson of Zenkimchi fame, said his Seoulpodcasts would be a full hour shorter each if not for Brian, but FatManSeoul was mostly there to try the different Jeolla-do foods.  When asked for a comment, she simply kept singing, “Skate, skate, skate, skate,” to herself, under her breath.

Mmmmmm, fermented skate!  홍어 사랑!