Pig Spine Soup (Gamjatang)

While pulling pieces of pork off a pig’s spine with chopsticks, and tearing apart bones to get to the spinal cord, I realized this has all started to feel really natural, and I love it deeply. Koreans know how to eat. It might not be my favorite cuisine in the whole world (this honor belongs to you, Lebanon), but getting to a restaurant, taking off your shoes, sitting down on the floor, passing out the silverware, and sitting around the gas flame (or charcoal) while your meal cooks is how, I think, we were meant to eat.

Its cozy, it actually feels like eating dinner “together”. Everyone eats from the same dishes, shares the same meal. You don’t just get a sample of your friends steak, or one ravioli from Mom, you all eat the same thing! I will miss this maybe more than anything else from our time here. I’m sure Karen and I will try to share more when we go back home.

The other thing I realized while eating Gamjatang, Pork Spine Soup w/ Potato, is I really love eating meat this way. At home, I was a vegetarian. It wasn’t really that difficult when your options are steak, hamburgers, boneless chicken breast, etc. If you offer me pigs belly, or meat that actually still has bones and organs, it makes it a bit harder for me to resist. I get to touch it, take it apart, actually feel like I’m eating an animal. My experience with chicken organs was limited to deep fried gizzards from KFC. Its so easy to ignore the fact that a living creature had to die in order to feed you in the States. A chicken breast in no way resembles a chicken. Here you have to touch the bone. You have to peel away the veins. They also eat everything. Every piece of the animal. Which is how we should… well, I guess we have taken care of this with hot dogs, but still I want to eat the good stuff!

I love Korea, and its food, and the way in which people eat. I hope its people never get lazy, and wonder, “why do I have to pay to cook my food?” I don’t think they will, I think they know its special.

-Cory