The article that I read was from: https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-do-korean-eat-for-breakfast-3970112
For my cultural posts, I decided to investigate breakfast in Korea and how it differs from traditional American breakfast. In America, we know common breakfasts are light and not too much food. Examples of this include pancakes, cereal, oatmeal, etc. After doing research, Korean breakfast is totally different.
In Korean, breakfast is “Ah-Chim.” Very different from Western cultured breakfast, Ah-Chim contains a lot of food similar to lunch and dinner. This includes soups, stews, rice, meat, and banchan. Traditional Korean meals are based on the main entrée with many sides called “banchan.” There are hundreds of different banchan in Korean culture that can supplement main foods like meat and rice. For Korean breakfast, I found the most common meals include soups and rice for breakfast. I never knew that Korean breakfast was basically the same as lunch and dinner. I thought there would be breakfast Korean foods, but Korean breakfast foods include many dishes eaten at other times of the day. The article I read also stated that around 20 percent of Korean people don’t eat breakfast. Furthermore, Korean breakfast is also sold on the streets. Some popular Street Food Breakfasts in Korea include breakfast sandwiches, sweetbreads, and rice cakes. These are very popular with tourists and taste very good in my experience!
In the picture above, there are three main parts to this traditional Korean breakfast. Firstly, the main entrée contains two parts: the rice and the fish/eggs. The second part of the meal above is soup/broth. This soup contains cucumbers and tofu. The last part of the meal is the three sides of the banchan. The first bowl contains pickled cucumbers seasoned with spicy sauce. The second bowl contains pickled yellow radish. And the third bowl contains the very popular Kimchi, which is fermented cabbage.
Korean food is very important to Korean culture. There are many different traditional meals and banchan that are pertinent to different Korean holidays such as New Year’s Day. There are also a lot of Korean meals and snacks sold in different street vendors. There are a lot of yummy snacks and meals you can get quickly from street vendors. Some of the most popular snacks include fried tofu and mandu.
In conclusion, I have learned a lot about Korean food and snacks, specifically Korean breakfast. Korean breakfast is a lot different from American breakfast and shows how different even the most common aspects of life can be from culture to culture. Although my parents grew up in Korea, they eat American breakfast foods. I know that when I was young, my dad used to eat soup and rice during the morning but living in America has assimilated him to eat cereal and toast. I hope I can continue to learn more about Korean food culture and begin to memorize some of the words in Korean for different meals and banchan. Another thing I learned from reading a couple of articles about Korean food is that many comfort foods in Korea are spicy.
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