Friday, May 20, 2005

the budae-jjigae dispute

Sometimes friends argue about the important things in life; sometimes they argue about the inane.

Last night featured a swim in the deep end of the inanity pool as my buddy Jang-woong and I discussed how to make budae-jjigae, a stew I've made many times.

I mentioned that budae-jjigae is fairly easy to make, but Jang-woong begged to differ, claiming that legitimate budae-jjigae requires the perfect broth, which is made by boiling a certain type of ground bean. I'd never heard of this before; the various budae-jjigae restos I've been to all use water as the basic broth (or so it seems). Jang-woong called the server over and asked her opinion. He was very leading, mentioning the bean-thing first and smugly waiting for her confirmation. She happily obliged-- "Oh, yes, of course we use that bean paste!"-- and my buddy enjoyed his moral victory.

Budae-jjigae comes in many forms, as is true of most Korean (and worldwide) stews. So I decided to ask some students today whether they've ever made budae-jjigae, and how they handle the broth issue. "Water," they said unanimously.

I'll have to present Jang-woong with this testimony when next I see him, though I doubt it'll shake his faith.


_

No comments:

Post a Comment

READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING!

All comments are subject to approval before they are published, so they will not appear immediately. Comments should be civil, relevant, and substantive. Anonymous comments are not allowed and will be unceremoniously deleted. For more on my comments policy, please see this entry on my other blog.

AND A NEW RULE (per this post): comments critical of Trump's lying must include criticism of Biden's lying on a one-for-one basis! Failure to be balanced means your comment will not be published.