Jeju

Jeju, the volcanic island off Korea's southern coast, developed foodways that differ clearly from those of the mainland. Scarce farmland, porous volcanic soil and isolation meant that rice, beef and much of what the mainland took for granted were rare luxuries.

Geography and climate

The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes the island's villages as falling into distinct types — coastal fishing villages, where women divers (haenyeo) gathered seafood, lowland farming villages and upland mountain villages — each with its own way of life. Arable land was limited and paddy rice very scarce; instead, the island grew millet, barley, buckwheat, beans, sesame and upland rice, with potatoes and sweet potatoes also important. The encyclopedia notes that most of the rice eaten on the island historically had to be brought from the mainland.

Visit Jeju, the island's official tourism site, adds that Jeju is the country's largest producer of buckwheat, a crop suited to land unfit for rice.

Character of the cuisine

The encyclopedia characterizes Jeju food as simple and unadorned, reflecting a hardworking, self-reliant culture. Everyday meals were built from mixed-grain rice, a soup and a few preserved side dishes. Soups were seasoned with doenjang and made from whatever was at hand: cabbage, bean leaves, radish, green onion, pumpkin, seaweed or fish.

Because few cattle were raised, pork and chicken were the main meats; beef was something bought from the mainland for the New Year holiday. White rice was reserved for ancestral rites and ceremonies.

Signature dishes and banchan

• Jari-hoe and jari-jeot: damselfish (jari) eaten raw in a cold soup (mulhoe) and salted as jari-jeot. The encyclopedia describes salted damselfish as a staple side dish and notes that eating fresh jari-hoe was considered a great pleasure.
• Momguk: a soup of gulfweed (mom in the Jeju dialect) simmered in pork broth, traditionally served at weddings and funerals.
• Bingtteok: a thin buckwheat crepe rolled around seasoned shredded radish, one of the best-known Jeju buckwheat foods.
• Pork dishes: boiled pork served on a wooden board (dombe-gogi), grilled pork, and gogi-guksu, a pork-broth noodle soup. Jeju's native black pig is especially prized.
• Seafood porridges and fish: porridges made with abalone, tilefish (okdom) or small crabs, grilled tilefish and hairtail, and raw abalone and turban shell.
• Wrapped greens: the encyclopedia describes farm workers packing mixed-grain rice with doenjang and salted damselfish, then wrapping bites in tender bean leaves picked from the field.
• Gosari: bracken fern is used in soups and pancakes and in a local yukgaejang made with pork; see gosari and gosari-namul.

Kimchi styles

Jeju kimchi is less central than on the mainland and tends to draw on the sea. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture lists abalone kimchi (jeonbok-kimchi), dongji-kimchi, seafood kimchi and nabak-kimchi. The Korea Herald also describes an abalone kimchi made with pear and citron.

Local specialties

• Grain rice cakes: with rice so precious, the island's rice cakes were made from buckwheat, millet, barley and sweet potato starch, including omegi-tteok (millet) and ppaedegi (sweet potato).
• Sea vegetables: raw seaweed and kelp wraps (see dashima), hijiki and cold hijiki soup.
• Abalone and citrus: the encyclopedia notes that dried abalone and tangerines were historically sent as tribute to the court and were hard for islanders themselves to eat.
• Sharing after rites: after an ancestral rite, families traditionally shared the rice from the offering table with neighbors the next morning.