Gim Bugak (Fried Laver Chips)

Bugak is one of the few Korean dishes that are deep-fried. The Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture describes it as vegetables or seaweed brushed with glutinous rice paste, dried in good weather and fried in vegetable oil when needed, so that the paste puffs and turns crisp. It stresses that bugak differs from Japanese or Chinese fritters: what goes into the oil is not wet batter but something already dried. The method is old. The 1766 Jeungbo sallim gyeongje gives a recipe in which glutinous rice flour kneaded with soy sauce is steamed, mixed with ground prickly-ash pepper, cut, dried and fried until it puffs, and the nineteenth-century Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango describes Chinese toon shoots dipped in rice paste, dried and fried as a side dish or drinking snack.

Bugak was made when ingredients were plentiful and stored for the leaner months; Korea Tourism Organization describes laver chips as a winter provision and a mainstay of temple cooking, and the folk-culture encyclopedia notes that bugak developed especially in Buddhist temples, where it was a valued source of fat and calories. The name gim-bugak is documented in the 1957 Ijo gungjeong yori tonggo, whose recipe seasons the rice paste with sugar, salt, pepper and chili, brushes it between two sheets of laver, dries them and fries them before serving. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture lists gim-bugak among the representative mitbanchan — the keeping side dishes stocked in every pantry.

Gim-bugak also has an export history. The folk-culture encyclopedia cites a 1956 newspaper report of Korean laver chips drawing attention at an Australian fair, and exports to the United States through a Korean-American firm in Hawaii beginning in 1961. Interest surged again after a 2018 television appearance, and laver snacks are now a major export. Today the town of Namwon in North Jeolla is the center of production: a 2023 Kyeongin Ilbo report put its output at about 1,263 tonnes a year, roughly 70% of the national total, made with local glutinous rice. Local accounts link the trade to laver brought upriver on salt boats and served as a delicacy in the town's entertainment houses.

• Seaweed nutrients: dried laver is concentrated in vitamin A (as beta-carotene), vitamin K, folate and iron; a light snack portion still carries some of each.
• Iodine: like other seaweeds, laver contributes iodine, a nutrient MedlinePlus notes is needed for normal thyroid function.
• A plant-based keeping dish: traditionally valued in temple diets as a source of energy from vegetable oil.

• South Jeolla: a Rural Development Administration survey cited by the folk-culture encyclopedia found cooks there making the rice paste with anchovy stock.
• North Jeolla: the same survey found the fried chips finished with a sprinkling of sugar; Namwon producers make the paste with stock from anchovy, kelp, shrimp and radish.
• Temple bugak: the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture notes Songgwangsa's distinctive potato and chili bugak; temples also make bugak from perilla flower clusters.
• Other bugak: perilla leaves (kkaennip-bugak), kelp coated with sticky rice on one side, green chilies, and toon or other leaves; the uncoated fried version of kelp is called twigak.