When we lived briefly in Turkey, I loved to go down to the open air markets and browse the stalls. So much to learn about a culture through what it puts in its stomach! The Turks loved dairy, olives, veggies, fruit, nuts, honey, and lamb.
Walt and I have been here in Korea for five weeks. What goes down the Korean gullet? If you go to markets like the Jungang market in Jinju, where we live, you'll see foodstuffs like these.
Lots of dried seafood, including cephalopods. Plenty of fresh seafood, too. The vendor in this photo had just stopped shucking molluscs to make a sale. From years of her work, she was as curled up as an oyster in its shell.
Bins of the infamous kimchee. Any vegetable can be made into kimchee; this fermentation process is not exclusively for napa cabbage. There are burlap bags full of gorgeous dried chilies. My fingers itched to string some as a kitchen decoration. Maybe at Christmas.
In plastic tubs on the ground, I spy blobs. Dark brown, tan, and pure white, they are slowly undulating. What the heck? A man in the doorway sees me looking and speaks to me. In the stream of foreign language, I recognize one word: 'escargot.' I bend closer. Necks outstretched, eye stalks peering, the snails are actively exploring their corral. A plexiglass lid keeps them from roaming.
A woman is squatting on the ground, scraping bristles off of pigs heads. Her infant son is strapped to her back. The kid is zonked out, asleep with his mouth open. There is something shocking about seeing decapitated pigs heads lying on the ground with a sleeping infant adjacent. But at a second glance, the pigs ears, the shape of their heads, the angles of their snouts as an ensemble looked like flower petals. Pink and soft, dewy and gentle, they are a fitting counterpoint to the jowly baby. Later a Korean friend told me that for good luck, new businesses place a pigs head in the window, and money is inserted into the pigs mouth. Happy and smiling pigs are best for luck. These tuskers would probably be auspicious.
More another time on why we're here. Aren't you hungry yet?
