The 10 Worst Foods in Korea

I just returned from a lunch with a few of the teachers from my school. I went expecting a great time, but now I feel ashamed and guilty. The reason is that the menu consisted of roast dog and dog soup. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, I mean it’s just another animal meat. I thoroughly enjoy cow, and pigs are fantastically delicious, especially their bacon organ. But this was different. For one thing, the skin was still attached to the meat, so I could see all of the hair follicles where the dog’s fur used to be. The meat itself didn’t taste bad, if I hadn’t known it used to be Fido I probably would have enjoyed it. But every bite I took I found myself thinking of the dogs I’ve known in the past. It got to me, it really did. I think I now realize why people choose to be vegetarian. Not to mention that I’ve seen the conditions in which these dogs meant for eating are raised. They keep them in tiny cages and beat them to make the meat tender. I’ve walked past several dog farms in this country and the sound of the dogs crying is sickening. I remember reading that for the 1988 Olympics, the Korean government made a huge effort to get dog meat restaurants off the main streets and out of the critical eye of the world. Yet dogs are still considered a delicacy in this country, especially with the older generation. I think now is the perfect time to follow up the 10 best foods in Korea with a list of the 10 worst. Take a guess what’s number one.

10. Spam – For some reason, Koreans love Spam. I think it may have something to do with the Korean war, and American soldiers sharing their rations of Spam. I don’t hate the stuff, but there’s no way I’m paying six bucks for a tin of it. Koreans like it so much that during the holiday season you can find 80 dollar Spam gift packs at the grocery store.

9. Rice Cakes – No, I’m not talking about the crunchy toasted rice cakes that are available back in Canada. In Korea, rice cakes are made of ground up rice. They’re soft and squishy, extremely heavy and have no flavor at all. They’re not bad if you’re hungry, but Koreans consider them a desert. Sometime they even coat them in flour for flavor or add peas to the dough.

8. Yellow Radish – Koreans always include a large number of side dishes with a meal. The last teacher dinner I went to, I counted 42 dishes between four people. Most of the dishes don’t even get touched. Yellow radish is contained in one of these dishes and I never eat it. The taste is hard to describe, but it’s a little like a pickle crossed with a potato. White radishes are not much better.

7. Old Kimchi – This is not the first time I’ve mentioned kimchi, and cooked kimchi is a key ingredient in some of my favorite Korean foods. But. Old kimchi, I’m talking three years old or more, kimchi you can taste the fermentation on, kimchi that is most likely alcoholic, is kimchi that I do not like. But according to Korean culture, age equals superiority, whether it be people or cabbage. To give you an idea how important kimchi is to the Korean people let me tell you about space kimchi. Korea has had one astronaut. Ever. But this didn’t stop them from spending millions of dollars (billions of won) developing a special kimchi package that can be taken into space. Americans have astronauts, Russians have cosmonauts, Koreans have kimchinauts.

6. Shrimp Flavored Chips – I kid you not.

5. Abalones – I’m not a huge seafood fan, but I’ll try anything once. The thing that I didn’t like about these glorified sea slugs is the disturbing way they were cooked. A propane burner was placed on the table in front of us and a pan full of vegetables was placed on it. Then the abalones were placed on top of the mix. Alive. As the pan heated up, the creatures began to writhe and emit a high pitched squeal. I think the noise might have just been been moisture escaping from their shells, but it wasn’t hard to imagine it as a scream from an animal being boiled alive.

4. Crab Brain Soup – I first had this not so delectable dish during lunch in the school cafeteria. At the time I detected what appeared to be walnuts mixed in with the regular vegetables in the soup. I only had to eat one to realize that they were not nuts. I asked my co-teacher what they were and she told me she didn’t know the English word. I asked if they were plant or animal. The answer was animal. I asked if it was from the sea. Affirmative. But not a fish. Then she pointed at her head and said ‘inside thing’. So I know for sure it was brains in the soup, I’m guessing they’re from a crab. But does it really matter?

3. Octopus – This is a delicacy of the Jeollanamdo province where I live. I’ve eaten calamari before and, while I wasn’t a fan of the rubbery texture, pretty much anything tastes good when it’s breaded and fried. But of course, this octopus isn’t breaded or fried. In fact, it’s not cooked at all…and it’s alive when they chop it up in front of you. The tentacles continue to squirm for a long time after they’ve been separated from their counterparts. For some reason, Koreans just love this, they’ll try to shove one in their mouth with a pair of chopsticks and the thing will latch onto their cheek with it’s suckers. I finally got up the nerve to try a piece after a school volleyball tournament. The female teachers laid out a post game snack and it included several Styrofoam coolers filled with wriggling octopus appendages. The taste was horrific, it was warm, salty, slimy, fishy, chewy…and alive! I managed to gag it down with the help of some beer, but just barely.

2. Skate – A skate resembles a sting ray. They’re look like someone ran over a fat slimy white iguana. I’m sure there are many ways to prepare skate that would taste delicious. But once again, Koreans have to eat it in the most disgusting way possible. They start by letting the fish die in a container filled with a small amount of water. The hotter and sunnier the location, the better. Skates urinate through their skin, so basically you have this fish rotting in a pool of ammonia and uremic acid, which makes it go bad very, very quickly. After a few days the taste is so terrible that it will literally make you mouth go numb for several minutes after you eat it. No, I am not kidding.

1. Dog

Honorable Mention goes to Mudfish soup for having a terrible name. The soup is actually quite delicious. It doesn’t taste like mud or fish.