Dongji: Winter Solstice and Red Bean Porridge

Dongji (동지), the winter solstice, falls around December 22 or 23 and is the longest night of the year. The Rural Development Administration's webzine notes that older East Asian thought held that yang energy begins to return at midnight on the solstice, and that the Zhou dynasty treated it as the start of the year. In Korea, it says, people into the early twentieth century called it ase (亞歲), the "little New Year," second only to Seollal. Officials and merchants finished printing next year's calendars before it, and calendars were a typical gift. Its place in the year is outlined in seasonal foods.

Patjuk: the food of the day

The food is patjuk, red bean porridge. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture defines it as porridge made by boiling red adzuki beans, straining the liquid and cooking rice in it. It suggests the custom likely came from China, where red beans were thought to drive off a plague demon, and finds it established by the Goryeo period, with poems by Yi Saek and Yi Je-hyeon. Joseon almanacs such as Dongguk sesigi and Yeolyang sesigi mention it too. The Rural Development Administration piece adds that Yi Saek's poem describes thick bean porridge sweetened with honey, and that the nineteenth-century writer Bingheogak Yi recorded stewing jujubes with the beans.

Saealsim: the little rice balls

Glutinous rice balls called saealsim (새알심), "bird-egg hearts," are usually added. The webzine says they first appear in Joseon records; the Dongguk sesigi describes steaming glutinous rice flour into egg-shaped cakes for the porridge. The Encyclopedia notes that some families put in one ball per member's age. See chapssal and pat.

The folk meaning of red

The Encyclopedia says red was thought to ward off evil spirits and disease, so porridge was sprinkled at gates, on storage jar platforms and along roads, and shared with neighbors, with households that were moving or building, and with those in mourning. The webzine reads the color as a symbol of brightness and notes that the household offered it to the ancestors; the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture lists the solstice "bean porridge" among foods in the Sarye pyeollam ritual manual, so patjuk could appear on a charye table (see jesa food). The webzine observes that these beliefs have mostly faded. The saying that a bowl adds a year parallels the one for tteokguk at Seollal.

Other uses and today

Patjuk was not only a winter dish. The Encyclopedia says it was eaten in the summer bok days, when it was called bokjuk, and sold as a snack at inns and along busy roads; see boknal and summer foods. The webzine adds that, a generation ago, a household unable to cook patjuk at the solstice might quietly be sent a bowl by neighbors. For the other holidays, see Chuseok foods and Daeboreum.