Where are the peanuts…? Right next to the Squid.

So there are two words that I never expected to hear in the same phrase. That just goes to show how different Korea is than Canada. I mean you go to the bar and the waitress places on your table a bowl filled on one side with peanuts and the other side with… fried squid. Seriously! They shred up the squid and then fry them and then eat them like potato chips.

Then the other day I was in a bar and we ordered a plate of chicken nuggets to eat while we drank. So the plate comes with chicken nuggets, fries, and what I believed to be was onion rings. I grab my fork and pick up an onion ring and bit into it. What I encountered was very tough, very chewy and did not taste like an onion ring, nor chicken either. What it ended up being was… Octopus!!! Yes I have now eaten octopus. I must say, it’s not too bad, but nothing too spectacular either. I have heard from one of my co-workers, who married a Korean woman, that once, when they were out on the beach, they came across a woman who was selling live octopi to eat right on the beach. My co-worker’s wife stopped, bought an octopus, the woman chopped it up for her, and then with tendrils still writhing, my friend’s wife just started popping the octopus pieces into her mouth and at it like popcorn.

Another Korean dish, I forget what the Korean name for it is, is silk worm. What they do is they take silk worms that have spun their last string of silk, then cook them up and eat them. The way that my friend explained it to me was that post war Korea was hard up for food and so they looked to all sources for food and when they had killed all the wild-life, they looked to the sea for a food source (this is where they came up with the idea of eating squid, octopi and seaweed amongst other sea life that they ate. Then as people got poorer after the war, not all could afford to go out to sea and catch things, so they looked to insects like the spent silk-worm, which had no other use to them, as food. Apparently they are very rich in protein. Now that Korea has entered a stage of economic wealth there is a little bit of a dichotomy between the older and younger generations. The older people still think that the silk-worm makes a delicious meal, but the younger people now have money to go and buy food that is was not a larva.

But for me I think it’s good to expand my interests a little. I’ve had Kim-chi, which is very spicy fermented cabbage, I’ve had squid (not a fan), octopus (not a fan, way too chewy), fish (you know I’ve never really tried fish much before, but the fish here isn’t too bad. I had it in a potato/fish soup), seaweed (it’s very salty, and otherwise pretty tasteless), and anchovies. I’d like to think I’ll be adventurous with tasting different foods here, but I think I’ll draw the line at eating silk worms.