Samgyetang (Ginseng Chicken Soup)

Samgyetang is the best-known food of boknal, the three hottest days of summer — chobok, jungbok and malbok — when Koreans traditionally fortify themselves with hot, rich dishes. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture explains the logic of the young chicken: before modern poultry farming, chicks hatched in spring had grown to 400–500 g by midsummer, just right for a restorative soup. Ginseng, milkvetch root and jujube, all native medicinal ingredients, reflect the idea that food and medicine share a source.

The dish as it is now is surprisingly recent. Food historian Joo Young-ha, writing in the Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, notes that no Joseon-era record of it has been found, partly because fresh ginseng spoils within days and was hard to obtain. Bang Sin-yeong's 1917 cookbook gives a chicken soup stuffed with glutinous rice and ginseng powder; under Japanese rule the dish was called gyesamtang, putting the chicken first. Old cookbooks do record related dishes such as yeongye-tang, a soup made from a young chicken.

From the 1960s, refrigeration, a booming government-backed poultry industry and the freeing of ginseng cultivation in 1965 put fresh ginseng and chicken within reach, and Seoul restaurants began selling it under the name samgyetang, now emphasizing the ginseng. The folk encyclopedia adds that as controversy over eating dog meat grew, samgyetang became the signature boknal dish from the 1980s on. A tradition-minded explanation also circulates, rooted in five-elements theory, of warming foods "overcoming" the summer heat.

• A protein-rich meal; chicken also supplies selenium and vitamin B12.
• Ginseng contains compounds called ginsenosides. NCCIH notes that research on ginseng for fatigue, blood sugar and other uses is limited or conflicting, so its role in the soup is best seen as traditional.
• The tradition behind it is iyeol-chiyeol, "fighting heat with heat" — eating hot food in hot weather to work up a sweat.

• Yeongye-baeksuk: the plain version — young chicken simmered with rice, jujube and garlic but no ginseng.
• Ginseng styles: fresh ginseng (susam) is standard today; older recipes and many cooks add milkvetch root (hwanggi), and the plain yeongye-baeksuk style uses chestnuts alongside jujube and garlic.
• Eating it: the meat is torn off the bones at the table and dipped in salt and pepper, and the soft rice from inside the bird is stirred into the broth.