Voila!
And then there was the brown rice. I told my parents about how 99.9% of Koreans (a guess based on pure speculation and personal experience) will only eat white sticky rice and they were surprised because rice is a staple food in Korea. You'd think that there'd be more of a variety in the selection of types of rice you can eat . . . I told them I was trying to remember if I'd ever been in a restaurant in Korea with brown/whole grain rice and I swear I can't think of a single time I've ever eaten anything but white sticky rice . . .
Anybody out there ever eaten other kinds of rice in a restaurant in Korea?Anyways . . . tonight my dad made my mom and I his lasagna. Some of the ingredients include: carrots, spinach, cucumber, cheeses, and of course pasta.
It was really good although I did put in a request for the cucumbers to be replaced by mushrooms or something else as I'm not a big fan. It was really nice to not be inundated with "But it's good for you!" by my parents along with an avalanche of reasons and facts about why I should love it--that's one thing that I've learned to ignore and even better yet not advertise at a dinner table when I'm eating with Koreans. I seriously recommend to anyone new to Korea that it's a bad idea to express that you don't like a particular food that everyone else is eating . . . it gets a little tiring to hear the same mindless lectures about how something is good for you and why you should love it more than oxygen . . . blah blah blah.One final thing about my day--BLUE SKIES and PURE WHITE CLOUDS . . . oh my god! Today was gorgeous outside when I went for a walk and stupid me didn't bring my camera with me.
I kept thinking about how different the summer skies are in Korea with their overcast browny-greyish Chinese yellow pollution-dust coloring . . .
Canada rules!
J
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6 comments:
a lot of koreans eat healthier rices at home, but restaurants stick with sticky white...i've never asked, but I'd venture to guess that sticky white rice keeps longer in a cooker without drying out, and is cheaper. I'm totally pulling those reasons out of my nose, though.
I've eaten dinners with Koreans in their homes and it's also been white rice . . .
The reasons you mention sound good to me . . .
Just have to wait and see if anyone else weighs in on this post.
Ciao.
(Forgive me to put this long comment) I'm Korean. Korean people mix barley (보리), brown rice (현미), black sweet rice(검은찹쌀), black bean (검은콩), red bean (팥), pea (완두콩), kidney bean (강남콩), millet (조, 수수) etc with white rice at home. You can call such rice just adding "-밥" at the end. (보리밥, 현미밥, 콩밥..)
Generally rice mixed with any of above called "잡곡밥 (jab-gok-bhap)" meaning "miscellaneous grain 밥".
I have 보리,현미,검은콩,팥,검은찹쌀,찹쌀 and I always use some of them when cooking rice. I'm sure that if you go to a big grocery store "grain section", you'll see all different kinds of grains Korean people use to put into their rice.
Until '60~'70s, white rice was the representative of "rich life", since it was relatively expensive, so Poor people "had to" put corn, barley, millet, potato, bean.. into their rice often more than half, and they admired the smooth texture of white rice cooked w/o any other grains.
Now white rice is not expensive any more but still most old people don't like brown rice etc since it reminds them of the old poor hard time. My father (in his late 60s) doesn't like beans or barley in his rice. Also some other people just prefer the texture of white rice.
Since it's easiest to offer one option for the rice, likely restaurants will serve white rice.
A few restaurants may offer two options (white / barley or mixed). And other restaurant specializing "han-sik" etc may give mixed rice.
Keep up the good work~!
Hi Anonymous,
Wow! Thank you for your comment and the information.
Do you have a blog in English? I think you could share a lot of interesting information and experiences. If you do please let me know the blog address. I would like to read it.
Thanks again.
J
Hi Jason. Anonymous here. :)
Thanks for tolerating my comment. I don't have an English blog (I only have a fan blog :D ), but just like food stuff. ^^
My name's June, living near San Fran. I'm regular to your blog, so will likely leave some comments later too :) I appreciate your good blogging!
Lasagna...i tried making it in our toaster oven, totally not the same, but it was ok. Your blog is great. Thanks for adding ours.
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