Foods for Life's Milestones

Korean households have long marked the passages of a life with food: a baby's hundredth day, the first birthday, a wedding, the sixtieth birthday and, at the end, the rites for the dead described in jesa food. Each occasion has its own table, and the dishes on it carry wishes for a long life, many children, enough to eat and good character. Customs varied by region, class and family, and the descriptions below follow the general pattern in Korean reference works rather than any single household.

Baegil: the hundredth day

Baegil (백일) celebrates a baby's hundredth day of life. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture connects the custom to a time when infant deaths were common, so surviving the first hundred days was itself worth marking, for girls and boys alike. The day traditionally began with a small table for Samsin, the goddess believed to watch over childbirth, set with seaweed soup and white rice; the mother or grandmother prayed for the child's health and long life, and the mother then ate the food. The baegil table itself held rice cakes and fruit, with a skein of white thread and rice for long life and plenty. White steamed rice cake, baekseolgi, symbolizing purity, was central; see tteok.

The rice cakes were then shared. Families sent tteok to neighbors and relatives, and those who received it returned the dish with money or thread inside. In some areas people believed that the more people ate the baby's tteok, the longer the child would live, and offered it even to passersby. A sick baby's celebration was skipped, out of fear that it would bring harm.

Dol: the first birthday and doljabi

The first birthday, dol (돌), was celebrated with special care for the same reason. References in Joseon sources suggest the custom dates at least to that period. The dolsang (돌상) traditionally held rice, seaweed soup, greens, baekseolgi and songpyeon, fruit and other dishes, plus a set of objects: rice, noodles, jujubes, skeins of thread, a brush, ink, an inkstone, a book, a bow and arrows for a boy, a ruler and colored thread for a girl, and money. Each carried a meaning. Rice stood for never going hungry, noodles and thread for long life, the brush and book for learning, money for wealth, jujubes and fruit for many descendants. Red-bean-coated sorghum balls were included because red was believed to ward off misfortune, and greens were left uncut so they stayed long.

The highlight was doljabi (돌잡이): guests watched which object the child reached for first and read it as a forecast of the child's future, sometimes nudging a hesitant hand toward the right one. A round table was preferred so a toddler would not bump into corners. As with baegil, rice cakes went out to neighbors afterward, and gifts came back in the empty dishes.

Weddings: ibaji, pyebaek and noodles

Wedding food moved between two families. Ibaji (이바지), from an old verb meaning to hold a feast, refers to food one family sends to the other. The bride's mother often prepared side dishes such as salted fish, jeotgal, jangajji and dried banchan so her daughter would not struggle in her new kitchen, along with meats, rice cakes and confections such as yakgwa and gangjeong. The custom varied: in Jeju the word meant goods sent to the bride's house, in Gyeongsang the families exchanged food the day before or on the wedding day, and in Gaeseong the bride brought dishes for her new household.

Pyebaek (폐백) is the bride's formal greeting to her husband's parents and elders. She sets out jujubes, chestnuts, wine and other foods brought from her own home, bows deeply and offers wine; her parents-in-law toss jujubes into her skirt as a wish for prosperity and many sons. Once held when the bride first arrived at her husband's house, often three days after the ceremony, pyebaek today usually takes place at the wedding hall on the same day. Guests, meanwhile, expected janchi-guksu, noodles in hot broth for a long marriage.

Hwangap: the sixtieth birthday

Hwangap (환갑), or hoegap, marks the completion of a sixty-year cycle, celebrated on the birthday in the sixty-first year by Korean count. When reaching that age was rare, it was a great event. Children and their spouses offered cups of wine and deep bows in turn, wishing the parent health. Behind the honoree stood the keunsang, a display table of confections, rice cakes, fruit, dried fish and meats stacked in tall columns, usually in odd numbers. Because it was not meant to be eaten on the spot, it was also called the table to look at. A separate table in front, built around noodles, let the honoree eat while receiving cups. Afterward the display was taken down and shared among relatives and neighbors, a practice called banggi.

Variation and change

Few families follow every step today, and practice always differed between regions, classes and households. Even so, the underlying grammar of these tables is still widely recognized: foods chosen for what they wish on the person being honored, and an obligation to share them with everyone around.