The topic of food is a popular one for my students to ask me in class. Most, if not all, assume, I don’t eat Korean food, either because I only know about hamburgers and fries, or I can’t handle spicy food. Neither is true.

I can make my own hamburger or hot dog (see first pic). And, I love spicy food. Onions, actually, are my favorite vegetable. Unlike most Koreans, I can even eat them pickled. My wife and I rarely go out to eat. Oil – except for fish oil which long ago replaced blood as the fluid in my circulatory system – sugar, and salt are any restaurant’s best friend, but not welcome in my home. I see no difference between ddeokboggi and fries – both are larded with one or all of the three for extra deadly and addictive power. I can make both at home, with less additives and with far more flavor.

Another aspect of eating chez Left Flank is ordering meat online. Here’s just one example of Australian pork vacuum sealed and shipped frozen. Some of the other meat in my freezer, including seafood, duck, beef, venison, sausage, and chicken, of various cuts, is also American. I have nothing against Hanwoo meat. There’s a butcher shop down the hill I used to patronize for years. The recent OIE ruling, that American and South Korean beef are both controlled risks, is also reassuring. My wife also buys lamb in Sasang-gu.

But, yes, sometimes we just eat pizza – with sausage ordered online. But, all the ingredients are home-made, ordered online, or market-bought.

So, as you can see, there’s a mixture here of western and Korean foods. You can’t see the kimchi side dishes, or the bowls of brown rice, on the table, too. We eat sitting cross-legged on the floor, Korean-style, with fancy wooden chopsticks and spoons. Finally, every main dish we make, western or Korean, and most side dishes, have a mixture of blended onions, chili peppers, and garlic in it. There’s just no need to pay good money for oil, sugar, and salt served incompetently. Unless, that is, someone else is buying!

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Filed under: Spleen Tagged: busan, ddeokboggi, food, hanwoo, kimchi, oie