From our Homepage: A Big Bowl of Wrong . . . or Right

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Budae Jjigae at San Soo Gap San

A Big Bowl of Wrong . . . or Right here by Jay Martini (aka jnm123)

Sometimes, the solution to utilizing surplus food supplies happens organically, spearheaded by one person that simultaneously sees an overage, and a need. Someone like Ashley Stanley, who walked into the back room of a Boston supermarket one day and saw piles of onions, potatoes and eggplant on the floor. The produce wasn’t spoiled, but was ready to be thrown into the dumpster because it had spent its allotted time on the store shelves. Ashley asked if she could have it, and five years later she and her company, Lovin’ Spoonfuls, were donating almost a million pounds of produce a year to Boston-area food pantries and homeless shelters. But, on occasion, necessity and opportunity play a role, which is how the Korean comfort stew budae jjigae came to life. A little background first, though…

Click here here to read the full article.

Awesome write up!

I had budae jjigae once at Da Rae Jung, and I have no urge to do so again, when so many of the other soups provide the same homey richness without the awful squishy hot dogs and spam and weird american cheese flavor. I guess it's just not for me. Billing it as "ham, sausage and cheese" when you mean "spam, hot dogs and american cheese" didn't seem quite honest to me either.

JoelF wrote:I had budae jjigae once at Da Rae Jung, and I have no urge to do so again, when so many of the other soups provide the same homey richness without the awful squishy hot dogs and spam and weird american cheese flavor. I guess it's just not for me.

For me, that was the best thing I ate there.

=R=

Hey all, thanks for the remarks!

This journey was a little like going down the rabbit hole, walking the line between total obscurity and a comfortable pair of shoes.

But, the dish must have some legs, as evidenced by a recent CNN cross-promotional clip by Anthony Bourdain & Anderson Cooper. Say what you want about Bourdain’s curmudgeonly demeanor, but since the introduction of No Reservations in 2005 he’s consistently been the most engaging, interesting and eminently watchable food/travel host on television. This Odd Couple-like interchange between Bourdain and Cooper hilariously discusses budae jjigae, from origin to completion.



Incidentally--my article and its title were penned before I saw this clip, and the wrong/right comments by Bourdain.

Ciao,

J

I was so ready to have a mouthful of this by the 9.5 rating, I had to eat something. Settled for franks and beans. Please get me to some budae jjigae next trip to Chicago. Great article. Wonderful food description, history, but loved the places and ratings too.

JoelF wrote:I had budae jjigae once at Da Rae Jung, and I have no urge to do so again, when so many of the other soups provide the same homey richness without the awful squishy hot dogs and spam and weird american cheese flavor. I guess it's just not for me. Billing it as "ham, sausage and cheese" when you mean "spam, hot dogs and american cheese" didn't seem quite honest to me either.

+100

this applies to budae jjigae globally. it is a horrendous reminder of what American G.I.s (and America in general) did to the seoul [pun intended] of Korean cooking.

i refuse to pay money, anywhere on this planet, to eat this pot. unless i'm drunk AF. during those moments, (obviously) i can't be judged for my palate, nor my decision making process. even then, i'd much rather have some other jjigae. or even better, just more soju.

also, i make the best budae jjigae at home, when SWMBO just starts demanding a trip to a ktown pojang, because i don't do what the Korean restaurants do, which is to throw the worst of the american MREs into a pot filled with nothing but MSG. The war is long over. I'd think the populace would've moved on.

/soapbox.

TonyC wrote:

JoelF wrote:I had budae jjigae once at Da Rae Jung, and I have no urge to do so again, when so many of the other soups provide the same homey richness without the awful squishy hot dogs and spam and weird american cheese flavor. I guess it's just not for me. Billing it as "ham, sausage and cheese" when you mean "spam, hot dogs and american cheese" didn't seem quite honest to me either.

+100

this applies to budae jjigae globally. it is a horrendous reminder of what American G.I.s (and America in general) did to the seoul [pun intended] of Korean cooking.

i refuse to pay money, anywhere on this planet, to eat this pot. unless i'm drunk AF. during those moments, (obviously) i can't be judged for my palate, nor my decision making process. even then, i'd much rather have some other jjigae. or even better, just more soju.

also, i make the best budae jjigae at home, when SWMBO just starts demanding a trip to a ktown pojang, because i don't do what the Korean restaurants do, which is to throw the worst of the american MREs into a pot filled with nothing but MSG. The war is long over. I'd think the populace would've moved on.

/soapbox.

Yikes, man. I think I like your passion, tongue-in-cheek or no. My next trip to L.A., K-Town is the first place I'm headed and budae jjigae is the first thing I'm ordering. Soju is a completely different animal, cause-effecting some of the worstest hangovers of my life, on a par with Sambuca, grappa and 7-star Metaxa. It's quasi-evil.

TonyC wrote:this applies to budae jjigae globally. it is a horrendous reminder of what American G.I.s (and America in general) did to the seoul [pun intended] of Korean cooking. /soapbox.

Hmm. Can I ask you to consider another perspective?

My father served in Korea from 1949 to 1952. He was stationed in Uijeongbu. The people there were starving. They got through cold winters in unheated homes with little more than kimchee and well water to eat and drink. My father nearly died of pneumonia there. He was for a time a Chinese prisoner of war and came home a bone-thin version of his already skinny self. Photographs I've seen that he took of Koreans struggling through their daily lives in those days showed the grim and primitive conditions in which people lived. The war made worse, especially for women and children, brutal conditions that had been in place for many years. Koreans were at that time easily decades behind Americans in their standard of living, their life expectancy, and their access to such basics as food, clean water, and fuel to heat their homes, cook food, and boil water.

Did plump, self-absorbed American GIs abandon the South Koreans, leaving them to pick through wastefully tossed half-empty cans of food in garbage dumps, to return home to their swimming pools and martinis? This doesn't seem to me to cast a realistic light on thousands of Americans who volunteered to leave their relatively comfortable homes in the US to serve alongside people who were struggling to stay alive under bitterly harsh conditions in a war zone in a desperately poor place on the other side of the world.

In the 65 years since, South Korea has developed one of the strongest and fastest-growing economies in the world, and its people enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. Its culture and its cuisine are thriving. Korean food is more popular in the US and other countries than it has ever been. Casting South Koreans as victims of the US Army and its awful food seems odd to me, especially considering the dire straits in which China and North Korea have left the still-starving Koreans on the other side of the DMZ.

My point is, Koreans weren't starving because Americans visited war and food waste upon them; they were already starving when some Americans volunteered to go there and join them in their struggle. The American Army gave the people in and around Uijeongbu surplus food, and out of that came Uijeongbu stew, aka army stew, aka budae jjigae. It kept people alive. It may very well be something few Americans would care to eat, given a choice, and maybe its continuing popularity in South Korea owes more to the kind of nostalgia some Americans have for green bean casserole than its inherent culinary value. But to describe it as some horrendous evil visited upon South Koreans and their cuisine is, in my opinion, to be unaware of, or willing to accept a one-sided view of, the history of that place in that era.

Katie wrote:This doesn't seem to me to cast a realistic light on thousands of Americans who volunteered to leave their relatively comfortable homes in the US to serve alongside people who were struggling to stay alive under bitterly harsh conditions in a war zone in a desperately poor place on the other side of the world.

Just a point of clarification - not everyone "volunteered" to be there. The US drafted 1.5 million citizens during the Korean War.

You're right of course; I was just referring specifically to those who did volunteer.

p.s., the picture of Kim Jong-un and its caption on the home page are intended as a joke, right? Is there any reason to think budae jjigae is a thing in North Korea?

The Ramen Rater rates budae jigae ramen. He added mung bean sprouts, cilantro, processed cheese, Beanee Weenies, sausage, Spam, and kimchi, and he loved it.