A Taste of Resilience: The Story of Budae Jjigae
75 years ago, on June 25th, 1950, the Korean War began. The fighting between the northern Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the southern Republic of Korea raged on for 3 years. During the devastation and food shortages that followed, Koreans created a dish that would come to symbolize resilience and creativity: budae jjigae. This popular dish represents the exact idea of Politics for Dinner: finding common ground in conflict. Because of my own Korean roots, I want to take a closer look at this dish to see how it tells a story of Korean culture.
Often considered the first proxy war of the Cold War era, there was a large foreign presence in the Korean Peninsula during and directly after the Korean War, particularly in South Korea, where many American military bases were stationed. Looking desperately for cost-affordable and accessible food, many starving Koreans heard that American military bases had excess stock of canned foods like Spam and beans. Koreans began to smuggle these canned products out of American military bases, and with these ingredients, budae jjigae was born.
Koreans still made their traditional soup base using ingredients such as fermented soybean paste, soy sauce, and fermented red chili paste, but the addition of American ingredients like Spam, beans, and sausages gave the dish a new layer of flavor. Koreans were not familiar with using these ingredients, but they adapted. Now, 75 years after the Korean War, budae jjigae is still one of the most popular Korean dishes. Not only does this dish highlight the innovation and ability to create a solution to the food scarcity in the war, but it also exemplifies the blending of American and Korean cultures in an unexpected way.
My family really enjoys budae jjigae and per the history of the dish, in our German-Korean-American household, we often add our twist through different ingredients. I am looking forward to introducing our take on budae jjigae and exploring the stories, history, and regional twists that make it so unique.
image: 서울 서초구 서초대로78길 34 ..Budae Jjigae we had at Songtan Bossam Budaejjigae in Seoul
