Bungeoppang (Fish-Shaped Red Bean Pastry)

Bungeoppang is one of the pulppang, cakes baked by pouring a runny wheat batter and a filling into hollow iron molds. The folk encyclopedia's Korean Wave culture dictionary describes it as batter and red bean paste baked in a mold shaped like a bungeo, a crucian carp, and calls it one of the defining snacks of Korean street food.

The idea came from Japan. Taiyaki — a similar cake in the shape of a sea bream (tai) — is credited to Seijiro Kobe, who with his brother opened a shop selling round red-bean imagawayaki in Tokyo in 1909 and, after trying turtles and other shapes, settled on the sea bream, a costly fish associated with celebration; the business continues as Naniwaya Sohonten in Azabu-Juban. According to the folk encyclopedia, taiyaki reached Korea in the 1930s, under Japanese rule. After liberation it was absorbed as a cheap batter-cake snack, and after the Korean War, when American aid made wheat plentiful, pulppang sellers needing little money or skill appeared in port towns and cities. In Korea the sea bream became a humbler freshwater carp.

The stalls have tracked the economy. The folk encyclopedia records that bungeoppang carts were cleared from city streets before the 1988 Seoul Olympics as unsightly, then reappeared during the 1997 financial crisis as laid-off workers took to selling them — some people even read bungeoppang sales as a recession indicator. Fillings have multiplied from red bean to custard, chocolate, pollack roe with mayonnaise, corn and pizza, and mini bungeoppang appeared. Rising costs and street regulations have thinned out neighborhood stalls, so fans now share stall locations on social media; bung-segwon, "bungeoppang zone," is slang for living near one, and a child who looks just like a parent is said to be bungeoppang. See Korean street food and hotteok.

• A modest treat: a single bun is a relatively small, low-fat sweet compared with many fried snacks.
• Red beans: the adzuki bean filling contributes a little fiber and plant protein.
• Warmth on a cold day: sold hot from the mold, it is traditionally a winter comfort food rather than an everyday food.

• Classic pat bungeoppang: a crisp-edged batter shell around sweetened red bean paste, the original filling and still the standard in places such as Seoul's Insa-dong.
• Custard and sweet fillings: custard cream (syu-keurim), chocolate and other sweet fillings sold alongside red bean.
• Savory fillings: pollack roe with mayonnaise, corn and pizza; the folk encyclopedia mentions seafood-added versions in Busan.
• Mini bungeoppang: bite-size fish baked several to a mold.
• Japanese taiyaki: the sea-bream-shaped ancestor, still sold across Japan.