Sunday, August 1, 2010

A Korean Fascination of Stirring and Mixing ( 韓式剉冰糊 )

An obsessive-compulsive disorder of Koreans is their fascination with the motion of stirring and mixing.
韓國人的諸多強迫症之一是對於這類動作有不可遏止的依戀

When cooking raw meat, I usually began stirring after the meat gets slightly cooked, and after stirring I'd wait for a little while and stir again. The Korean way is to keep stirring from the every beginning, non-stop, which to me, does not seem that smart. Plus, it's always damn sweltering beside the stove.
炒菜時,我會等到肉熟了點後才開始翻攪,每回翻攪後,會讓它擺在那裡,停一下再繼續翻攪。但韓國人卻從肉生生的一丟下去就不停翻攪,還不可以停。這在我看來是很不必要的事,而且很笨,因為這種方式很累人,爐火旁又熱得要死(好啦,你去熱是你的事,要求我也這樣做,我真的很OX ! )。

GoGung's Spicy Octopus Bibimbap
that my father ordered (source)
During my father's first trip to Korea, we took him to GoGung (고궁), a bibimbap restaurant. Bibimbap literally means "mixed rice"; it's served as a bowl of rice topped with things like vegetables, minced meat and egg, with a huge scoop of chili sauce in the middle. You stir all the ingredients thoroughly before eating. However, the kind of bibimbap my father ordered was extremely spicy, so he did not stir all the indigents at once but eat little by little, a mouthful of rice and vegetables and a little chili sauce. However, when the waiter saw him, he came, took away his spoon and chopsticks and began stirring thoroughly with passion. And he made the whole bowl uneatable for my father.
我爸第一次到韓國時,我們帶他去古宮吃拌飯。拌飯上桌時,底下是飯,上面鋪滿各式菜料,中間有一大陀辣椒醬,吃法是要整個拌在一起。拌飯種類有很多,唯獨我爸點的辣炒章魚拌飯辣到仆街,所以他不能整碗拌,而是挖一口飯,搭一點菜跟辣椒醬這樣吃。不料,服務生竟然跑過來說他吃法不對,以迅雷之速從我爸手裡奪走湯匙筷子並感情豐沛的完成了徹底的攪拌。於是,這碗飯我爸是一口都吃不下去了(因為太辣,我爸在公車上還吐了@@)。

Korean style ice cream (bingsu, "shaved ice") is similar to the Taiwanese ones just, they eat it differently. In Yoko's book she once mentioned that Japanese eat ice cream with maintaining its original appearance as a principle, while Korean people stir and mix all ingredients to enjoy the harmony of flavors
韓國也有剉冰,口味與花樣跟台灣的都差不多,只是韓國人是把剉冰當剉冰糊來吃的。Yoko曾在書中寫過一篇 "入鄉隨俗" (見下圖),提到日本人吃剉冰會以盡量不破壞外觀為原則,但韓國人吃剉冰,則是要攪成糊後享受調合的美味


(source : 새댁 요코짱의 한국살이(두 번째 이야기) pp. 84~85 ; English captions by me )

It's summer now and every where there are people eating bingsu. Whenever I see people with a bowl of melted ice cream in bizarre colors, I feel a chill down my spine. We passed by illy the other day and tried their espresso flavor bingsu topped with Häagen-Dazs ice cream. KC and I made a deal to stir and mix only after finishing that scoop of Häagen-Dazs. See before and after.
現在是夏季,到處都有人吃剉冰,而我每次看到那一碗碗顏色詭異的剉冰糊,都覺得很噁心。那天經過illy,看到espresso口味的剉冰,上面還有兩球哈根達斯冰淇淋,就很想吃,還好許先生答應我,等到哈根達斯吃完後才會開始攪,before & after 圖請見 :

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