[Namsan Ddalkkakbari] Confession of a Jjajangmyeon Lover: "How Lucky Is It That They Have Large Portions"

Jjajangmyeon or Jjamppong. Perhaps this is a more important dilemma for modern people than Hamlet's famous question. Although there is a compromise called Jjamjjamyeon, Park Chan-il, author of How Fortunate It Is That There Is a Large Serving, praises jjajangmyeon, saying, "Jjajangmyeon stands before all the foods in the world. At least for me, that's true."

"Stir-frying, Maillard reaction, fermentation, amino acids, caramelizing, blood sugar... and if I were to add one more thing, it would be patience." This is why jjajang tastes so good. The author confesses, "I have been a long-time believer in the jjajangmyeon religion," and "even with the advent of instant products for home use, I have not abandoned my faith."

The author's connection with jjajangmyeon dates back to his school days. Someone once said that the most delicious jjajangmyeon is the one eaten at a billiard hall. During his youth, the author often skipped school and spent time at billiard halls to relieve boredom by playing betting billiards. Jjajangmyeon was an indispensable part of this. The rule was that if you lost a bet, you had to pay for both the game and the jjajangmyeon. "At the moment of a fateful match, if you delayed, you would be booed," but "if you were devouring jjajangmyeon, they would let it slide." "Because if you don't eat it immediately, you can't have it. Soggy jjajangmyeon is a disgrace."

In times of financial hardship, if he ended up the ultimate loser, he would sometimes escape by jumping out the window. When that happened, the billiard hall uncle would visit the homeroom teacher's office. Was he scolded? No. Rather, the homeroom teacher said, "The Chinese restaurant owner came by," and pitied him, saying, "Call if you're hungry." The billiard hall uncle left with the words, "There are rules even for collecting money, kid."

The author worries, "Now jjajangmyeon is roughly ruined." Delivery is one of the reasons. As delivery areas expanded, to prevent jjajangmyeon from becoming soggy, 'soda' (sodium carbonate) began to be added, which made the noodles more elastic but also "so tough they feel like rubber bands."

In the past, the four great kings of Chinese restaurants were jjajangmyeon, jjamppong, tempura, and japchae. Tempura is a Japanese word meaning fried food, but it referred to "fried food coated with seasoned batter without sauce, like sweet and sour pork." Back then, it was eaten dipped in soy sauce and vinegar. Until the 1970s, japchae was considered a 'dish' of Chinese restaurants. "The main ingredient of japchae, glass noodles, was supplied mainly to grocery stores run by ethnic Chinese or Chinese restaurants."

'Jjanggæ.' A term used to refer to jjajangmyeon or as a derogatory expression against Chinese people. The origin of this term is jang-gwe (掌櫃), meaning a money box or, more broadly, a manager or owner who handles money. Originally, it was a respectful term for the manager of a Chinese restaurant but has since become a derogatory term.

Jjajang came to the Korean Peninsula in 1882 due to the Imo Incident along with Qing Chinese people. The main ingredient of jjajang, chunjang, refers to a Shandong-style fermented soybean paste called cheonmyeonjang, not the spring character (春). Although sometimes written as 春醬 in Korea, it is not listed in any Korean or Chinese dictionaries. The origin of jjajangmyeon is believed to be street vendors in Incheon who sliced noodles like kalguksu and topped them with boiled sauce, selling it as fast food to Chinese laborers. However, Chinese and Korean jjajang are distinctly different. The jjajang we eat contains many vegetables such as onions, zucchini, cabbage, radish, and potatoes. In contrast, the Beijing-style 'authentic' jjajang is simply pork stir-fried with chunjang in oil. Sometimes cucumber was added, which was a popular summer delicacy in China. When this was introduced to Korea, it transformed into a year-round dish, and during times when only seasonal vegetables were available, peas of a similar color were used instead of cucumber, which the author speculates is how the dish evolved.

The author places great importance on cucumber. For him, cucumber is a gauge of food quality. "When I eat jjajangmyeon topped with professionally thinly and uniformly sliced cucumbers that are crisp and delicate, I feel very good." If a restaurant puts cucumbers well, he thinks they are good at any dish. He asks, "So what if they don’t put cucumbers or just roughly slice them because they are short-handed? Wouldn’t it be more trustworthy if they carefully and finely julienned cucumbers and placed them on jjajangmyeon?"

The author calls himself a jjajangmyeon tracker. He travels across all provinces of Korea and around the world in search of delicious jjajang. He even goes as far as Busan to find good places, and when a restaurant is about to close, he actively expresses his intention to buy the store’s nameplate from the owner to commemorate it. One place he frequently visits is Chef Lee Yeon-bok’s Chinese restaurant ‘Mokran.’ This chef says, "The person who enjoys the food I make the most is Park Chan-il." He also advises, "After seeing this book, (the author) makes jjajangmyeon himself, but I think that’s not right. What’s not right is not right. Jjajangmyeon is not that simple. Just come and eat it. Park Chan-il," as a kind of recommendation.

How Fortunate It Is That There Is a Large Serving | Written by Park Chan-il | Semicolon | 11,200 KRW