There were a disturbing number of suckers on my friends plate. And one of the side dishes was looking at me with surprise.
Such is my lasting impression of my first experience with Korean food on Thursday night.
I have, over the years, become a reasonably well-rounded diner, after a fashion. For a mid-America dweller, I have a reasonable sense of dining adventure. Prior to Thursday, I had eaten what I think of as a tolerably decent sample of the cuisines of
Suckers and fish peepers. That's what.
I should, before I go on, confess that until last June I had not eaten meat in any identifiable form in almost 15 years. There is fish sauce in Thai food, I know that. And I'm sure that over the years I'd consumed various sauces and soups that undoubtedly contained stocks and meat leavings, but otherwise I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for a long damn time. Ultimately, my foodie leanings and hedonistic nature led me to have a shrimp risotto, and since then I've eaten seafood here and there. Crawfish, shrimp, strange square Filet'o Fish sammich, and a truly exquisite scallop--I'm still rather new to this whole seafood thing, and although I have liked it thus far, it's a constant decision to eat it or not to eat it--touch and go all the time.
So. Thursday night. Dinner with a friend, and we decide to go for Korean. Him? He LOVES Korean food, and when that's what we decided to do he responded like a kid who has just been told that OF COURSE he could have the extra-large banana split with extra chocolate sauce and sprinkles.
I take this as a good sign, as any time someone whom I respect is that enthusiastic about a thing I assume that it bodes well for that thing. So, cool.
Now, to leap ahead a bit, what I had was quite good. It was some sort of spicy soup with seafood and tofu and green onions and egg. Quite tasty, with a clearness of flavors that belied the incredible richness that I can only assume was a result of all the soft tofu and what had to have been an outrageous fish-stock base.
That wasn't the problem. The problem, if you can call it that, was one of side dishes. Apparently, everything comes with a variety of sides. Kimchee. Lotus root. Something that I assumed was a fried tofu, but in retrospect might have been something quite different (a fact upon which I choose not to dwell). A dish of whole, cooked minnows.
Yes. You read that right. Okay, I don't know that they were minnows. I don't know what species of fish they were exactly, but really, does it matter? Think small feeder goldish, or large guppies without the fancy tails.
So. The waiter brings this all out, sets it down, walks off. My dining companion explains to me what everything is. He gestures to the dish o' fish, and says he thinks it's seaweed.
I peek at it.
It peeks back.
"Nope. Those are fish," I respond.
"Really?" he says, digging in his chopsticks.
I actually felt myself blanche.
The little fishes didn't like my outfit; they questioned the way I held chopsticks. They wanted to be eaten, quickly, because I bored them. "We are so happy to be your dinner," they said.
I tried not to giggle. Or make eye contact. I glanced over at my friend's plate. Or should I say, I glanced at the giant pile of tentacles in chile sauce sitting in a fajita skillet in front of him. The visible proliferation of suckers was . . . distracting. I looked at my own food. There was something floating in it, mostly submerged. I was very, very afraid to know what it was. I pushed it under with my spoon, Scarlett O'Hara style . "I'll think about you later when I can stand it better," I thought. I focused unwavering attention on my rice. I’m sure that my friend thought I had finally gone round the bend because to all appearances I was talking to the table throughout dinner.
As dinner progressed, my soup dwindled, and it was increasingly impossible to ignore whatever it was that was floating there. I applied my chopsticks and was relieved to see that it was merely a shrimp. At first I was somewhat flummoxed by its head; its eyes; its antennae; its whiskers; and its many, many legs. I found that it did turn out to be quite tasty once I removed its exoskeleton and hid it behind my teacup.
Because I had been a vegetarian for so long, and because of the reasons why I had been a vegetarian, I am very conscious of the idea that meat is made of animals. I don't do a very good job of separating what is on my fork or in my hand from what it used to be. I think that is a good thing, I think that it is part of what makes me who I am. In future, though, I think I would prefer to leave a tad more mystery to my meals. Either that, or I can return life as a vegetarian.
As for Korean food more generally, I would certainly eat it again. It was tasty, and it no longer has the advantage of surprise. Also, I am going to begin recommending it to my male friends as the perfect means by which to screen the humorless princesses from the women they date. Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke.
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