Thursday, October 27, 2005

jui-p'o



One of my favorite Korean snacks is jui-p'o, a dried fish that's been flattened out into ovals. You generally have to heat the fish up over a flame or an electric burner; it shrinks, burns a bit, and becomes crunchy. The fish is usually coated with a very thin layer of some sort of sugar (not as gross as it sounds), which makes it somewhat sweet.

Up until about a week ago, I'd never seen jui-p'o in any form other than those vaguely fish-shaped ovals so reminiscent of roadkill. All that changed this past Sunday, however, when my parents came back to Seoul after a few days spent on Cheju Island. Sunday night was my final night with the parents, so there was the obligatory exchange of parting gifts. My gifts to the parents weren't all that splendid, but Mom gave me a huge load of jui-p'o in a form I'd never seen before: poster-sized sheets.

Holy soiled underwear, Batman!


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