The Taste of Friendship

Herein is a tale of a few recent adventures I've had with Korean food...

For some reason, my good friend (and former p'ansori teacher) Lee Ju-eun thinks I am a vegetarian. The reason for this is a REALLY long story, but suffice it to say that she is my best friend here in Korea, she understands me better than anyone else in this fair land, and we eat together maybe two to three times a month and each and every time I tell her, "No, it is not I who is the vegetarian, it is my friend, Diana, who you met only twice ten years ago, SHE was the vegetarian, NOT me...," yet still somehow she is convinced it is I that am the herbivore. So, knowing I don't eat meat, she decides to take me to a restaurant a while back that serves only innards -- yep, no meat for me, but bring on those grilled intestines, brains, and other unspeakables!

She also (supposedly) knows that although I don't mind most fish and shrimp..., I'm not a huge slimy-seafood-lovin'-kinda-gal, but... on Lunar New Year's Eve she invites me to her master teacher's house. Mind you, this is a big deal. I've met Shin Young-hee on several occasions before, but it is really a privilege to go to her house for dinner on a day meant to honor our elders and ancestors. (I didn't bow down to her and slide her a little white envelop filled with loads of cash like I probably should have, but nonetheless, I was there to watch other disciples do so.) Anyway, I am well aware that Master Shin is known for her cooking (she has even published her own cookbook), but that she is also from a southern island where they eat mostly seafood, but I'm thinking... "Okay, it is tradition to eat "dduk-guk" (a very mild, chewy rice cake soup) for New Years, so I should be safe." But, oh no! Master Shin decides to make "special" dduk-guk, with horrid little mollusk-like creatures in it. I don't know what these things are, but I know they should not be eaten by humankind. I had about 20 of them in my bowl -- I was the honored guest after all -- and the whole time I'm just thinking "how am I going to get through this?" But somehow, and I'm not kidding, a miracle occurred. At one point I'd eaten about 5 and I'm thinking okay, I'm gonna live, only 15 more to go, when suddenly, they were gone. REALLY, I don't know what happened to them. It was the opposite of feeding the masses with a mere two loaves and five fishes. Those nasty little buggers just swam away, or something -- all I know is that they disappeared.

THEN, one day not long after that, Ju-eun and I decided to go out for super spicy stir-fried squid. Now, you'd think that that might be the end of the story, but truth be told, "Nakchi-pokkum" is one of my favorite dishes. BUT... the owner of the store just loves Ju-eun (because they are from the same hometown down on the southern coast and can talk -- and be understood -- in the unique dialect of the area), so rather than giving us what we ordered, she decides to give us her favorite treat. Yep, you guessed it... LIVE SQUID!! I so wished I had a camera. It wasn't as bad as it could be, because at least the lady cut it up for us -- I didn't have to wrap the whole beast around my chopsticks and try to swallow it before it sticks permanently in my throat. But I kid you not, even chopped up, those little legs are just a-wrigglin' and a-squirmin' around on the plate. In fact, they are a little hard to eat, not only because the thing has only been dead for 30 seconds, but because the tentacles are actually stuck to the plate -- you really gotta work to try to get them detached (not to mention then stick them in your mouth and chew!)

Okay, so I live through that one, and at some level even enjoyed the meal, only to join Ju-eun the following week at a restaurant specializing in oysters. Egad. Anything but oysters. Not only slimy, but gritty, too. Can there be a worse combination? And there they were in my bowl. Mounds of them. Seriously, I think I had twice as many as Ju-eun (who loves, them, of course.) And, to make it worse, just when I think I might actually be able to conquer the oyster soup, she decides she wants a heaping plateful of deep-fried oysters, too! I don't know how I survived, but I did! The strange thing was, they were actually pretty good -- not gritty, and not even as slimy as most oysters. I can't say it would be my first choice for a meal in the future, but not so bad, not so bad.

And so, if stories such as these have not frightened you completely... please, come join me in Korea and I'll take you out for some truly delectable goodies!