1. 한국에 가면 삼계탕과, 돌솥비빔밥을 먹어 보고 싶어요.
Ginseng chicken soup (samgyetang in Korean) is a hot, steaming, delicious dish that features a small chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng, garlic, and dates. You have to commit to eating a whole chicken all by yourself when you sit down for a bowl of samgyetang! But it’s totally worth it.
Koreans traditionally eat this dish during the hottest days of summer as a way to keep up their energy and to balance their body heat with the weather outside. We have a saying: Yi yeol chi yeol 이열치열, which means “fight fire with fire.” If it’s hot outside, you have to overcome it with hot soup!
Koreans designate the 3 hottest days of a year as sambok (3 bok: 삼복) and their dates vary from year to year but they usually fall in July and August. First is chobok (beginning), and then 10 days later is jungbok (middle), and 20 days after that is malbok (last).
During this time, well-known samgyetang restaurants will be lined up outside, and inside they are full of diners eating hot, steamy, ginseng-infused soup, with sweat trickling down their foreheads as they fight fire with fire! People make samgyetang for all their family, too. I usually prepare samgyetang and cold watermelon. After finishing hot samgyetang, I end the meal with cold watermelon. The contrast makes your body feel shockingly cold.
