Thought id make a new list of foods ive been eating copious amounts of that are weird, wacky and wonderful.
- FISH BONES: Most fish meals have bones still in them. Even the "fillets" are bound to have bones, grilled fish are not deboned at all (they are simply flavoured and cooked and you pick away at the meat with your chopsticks. Im not very good at this) and even the fish I get in my soup at school has bones all through it. The bones range from entire spines to small thin ribs. Ive come to realise that if you want to remove all the bones you need to remain at your table for at least 3 hours and you need the hands of a heart surgeon, so ive basically given up on that. If the bone is thinner than my little finger, I just swallow them. Well not that big actually, but more like ill eat everything except the spine. Havent choked badly yet so I think ill keep up with this rule. My favourite moment in fish bones has already been explained previously on the blog but I will quickly re-hash; I had one meal with 2 fish dishes. One dish was ENTIRE fish deep fried (the fish were small poddy mullet/white bait looking fish covered in batter. the deep frying managed to soften the bones in this) and another was the same fish in a casserole. The bones in this fish, however, were not softened, so i had avoid the bones and pick at the meat. In one fish I could get maybe a teaspoon of meat. Lots of work for little payoff.
- GREEN CHILLIES: I have also detailed my hijinks related to green chillies. They are a very popular side dish over here. Typically eaten by just dumping the end of it into some nice dipping sauce and chowing down. Can be eaten by adding it with other stuff, but most just take it down in3 or 4 bites. I dont mind them, as most arent hot. The long and thin ones are what u need to look out for, and are probably the hottest thing ive had over here. Ive given my teachers a good laugh by eating the hot ones a few times.
- GARLIC: Lots of garlic at a barbecue. Most incredibly, many people can eat them straight, or with a small amount of dipping sauce. I find the weird heat/strong burst of flavour too much to handle, but if you grill them on the same plate as your beef or pork and cook them a bit, they are bloody awesome. We arent talking about thin slices or finely chopped garlic either, more like the size of your thumb. Such as above
- BEANSPROUTS: One of my absolute favourite side dishes. Best eaten at a barbecue where you grill them, much like the garlic (and kimchi also), on the plate where the meat is. Bloody fantastic. Comes in 2 varieties, plain and with red pepper sauce - ill take either but with the red pepper sauce they are amazing.
- EEL: Yes thats right Eel. Many many eel resturants in town. As a meat, its fine, nothing too distinct about it, sort of fishy. This is one fish where u know you wont be getting bones. Basically the guts and the spine is removed and then the remaining meat is chopped into pieces 2 to 3 cm long. The pieces then flatten out when they are grilled so your left with pieces of meat just smaller than a credit card. Im always amazed at how much meat you can get from these guys because u can see them swimming in the tanks out the front of the store and they are very thin and small. They look more like sea snakes than morey eels. The most popular piece of the eel is the tail which is said to be good for "stamina". Two points; 1. Stamina does not refer to the type of stamina required to run a marathon. 2. I think ive heard of every food in Korea as being good for stamina. Whether its dog, kimchi, tofu, coffee or water. Everything is good for stamina. Regardless, Eel may be the animal with the highest concentration of "stamina" in its meat as far as I understand it. The picture below is accurate size of the eel, but we dont have it in the "runny" sauce and it is cooked far more. It looks for more appetizing than this
- HARDBOILED EGGS: I remember when it was Easter over here I walked into school and was greeted, not with a chocolate egg, but a hard-boiled egg, and think what the hell is wrong with these people. Not wanting to be rude I decided to eat it, and that was after the eternity it took to figure out how to peel it properly (id never done it before, give me a break). I was literally expecting to throw it back up, but it went down quite well. I had been converted. Vendors on the side of the road sell hard boiled eggs, its a common morning tea snack at school and in resturants some places have quail eggs as a side dish . Ive even taken to them so well that ive hard-boiled my OWN batch of eggs to snack on many times. Thats right i hard boil my own eggs.
- RICE: I think it safe to say that ive tripled my life entire output since ive been here, and ive always eaten rice back home. I havent had rice before 11 in the morning yet, if or when I do it ill officially be Koreanised. Ive also not made it once at home. I figure that if I ever feel like eating rice, ill just go to ANY building with a roof nearby and they will have some for me. I also dont wont to burn out on it, so if I limit myself to lunch and resturants, I shouldnt get sick of it. I still get amazed by the things that are made from rice over here. Rice wine (not pleasant but drinkable), rice deserts (the rice machine is dumped with boiling water and then the resulting goo is put in a bowl and served), rice sweet ice tea (probably the worst thing thats been in my mouth since ive been here) are just the tip of the iceberg.
Cant wait to take the brothers and sister out to dinner here.... especially u macka
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