Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Yesterday I had the good fortune to be invited for a meal at a Korean household.  My Korean friend Jino introduced me to a lovely Korean family who decided that they would like to invite me into their home to share a traditional Korean barbecue (samgyeopsal).  Samgyeopsal is basically thick, non-salted bacon.  Usually this meal would be eaten at special restaurants since it is cooked over a flame but for special occasions it can be cooked at home.  They say it is because the smoke can stain the inside of the home whereas at the restaurant they have special exhaust hoods over each table.

It is customary to for the guest to bring a gift to the host when you are invited into the home.  At all of the stores you can buy ‘gift sets’ for this purpose.  Gift sets come with all different items inside but it seems to me that the most popular are ginseng gift sets or orange juice gift sets.  For a normal visit to a house it may also be okay to bring just one jug of orange juice (2L plastic bottle).  Jino and I opted for the 12-pack orange juice (small bottles) gift set.

The meals in Korea are very grand with multiple side dishes and sauces arranged on the table prior to the main course.  Everyone shares from these dishes and you will usually not receive your own personal plate only chopsticks and a spoon.  The side dishes can include anything from fish to noodles to leafy-things and peppers but will definitely include kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage).  Sauces can include soy sauce with sesame seeds, oil with salt added or some traditional sauce specific to the main dish.  Also there will usually be a soup served with sticky rice.

After you eat your fill of the side dishes and feel you can eat no more you can start cooking the samgyeopsal meat along with sliced garlic and mushrooms.  While it is cooking you can pick away at more of the side dishes.  When the meat is cooked you can take it from the BBQ and wrap it in a leaf (usually lettuce), add some things from the side dishes and add some sauce to the meat.  You just pop the whole leaf in your mouth and keep doing this until you feel you can’t eat any more… then you keep going.

While I was there the father of the family came home from work.  Upon his arrival the entire family went to greet him at the door.  He came in and said his ‘Annyoung- hasehyo(s)’ and then went to change his clothes and leave for a meeting after work.  When he was ready to leave the family again went to the door to say farewell.  I asked Jino if this was common practice and he said it would depend on the family but generally it is common until the family members reach a certain age (18 yrs.).

We continued cooking the meat and eating it for about two hours non-stop.  After this there was a desert and tea.  Desert was simply apples and mandarin oranges.  The tea that was served was Jasmine tea.  By the time we were finished I was obviously quite full and it was time for us to leave.

It was a great experience and I feel lucky to have been able to do it.  There was not quite as much ‘tradition’ as I was hoping for but the hospitality was second to none.  When I was leaving the mother even made me a special ‘Korean pizza’ to take with me to give to Brynn.