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Tteokguk fever in January
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An age old tradition promising prosperity and good health
January 14, 2007
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|  | | A bowl of Korean rice cake soup. |
Here’s this week’s tip on Korean language and customs:
Q.Around New Year’s Day it seems Koreans take great delight in talking about tteokguk or rice cake soup. Some say they begin eating it days before the actual first day. Even Westerners like me get asked frequently whether I ate a properly prepared dish and I have seen some very concerned faces when I have said no. But then, tteokguk is sold in many Korean restaurants all year around. Many people order tteokguk in Korean restaurants in New York, for example. So what is the significance of eating the soup on New Year’s Day? Is there a different meaning if Koreans eat the soup at any other time of the year?
A. Eating tteokguk, or literally rice cake soup, has been a long culinary tradition in Korea. Ingredients include classic garaetteok, or long tubular rice cake, which is sliced, and a hearty beef or vegetable stock. The soup is then served in a colorful way with jidan, or assorted toppings, made from eggs, mushroom, green onion, or ginkgo nuts. All these ingredients might be common these days but when Korea was an old-fashioned agricultural society, tteokguk was considered to be a fancy and highly nutritious treat, reserved for big holidays. Garaetteok, for one thing, requires a lot of white rice, the most desired staple food in Korea, and beef soup and eggs were once considered a rare food essential to stamina. Eating tteokguk symbolizes a prosperous start to the New Year for all.
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