from the cafeteria: November 6

The day after Guy Fawkes Day, I had the following Course B item:

Here I make a stylistic command decision and romanize the word as soondae instead of sundae, given that sundae looks exactly like the "sundae" in "ice cream sundae." I normally don't like using double-O's; it's not aesthetically pleasing to do so.

What is soondae? It's the Korean version of blood sausage. Imagine blood and cellophane noodles (along with, perhaps, some rice) stuffed into a sausage casing and cooked (boiled, steamed, etc.) to savory perfection. I love soondae. It's a close cousin of the French boudin noir, which is also a blood sausage. The French, however, take the blood-sausage concept pretty literally, and fill the sausage casing with pig blood, fat, and little else (see here). The result is a sausage with almost no resistance when you chew it: it's got a smooth, almost buttery texture, and the blood and fat hint at the meat that contained them.

Enough boudin talk (boudinage?). So that's soondae, pictured above, in slices, next to the huge glop of rice. The sides are oi-kimchi, tofu and taters in a sweet soy sauce, and kimchi. The soup is a fish-based broth with chunks of eo-muk (molded fish paste) in it. The soup made me smile; it was thin, almost prison fare. Luckily, the rest of the tray made up for the insubstantiality of the soup.


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