ⓒ YONHAP News

Chobok, which marks the beginning of the hot summer, falls on July 16 this year. Meaning the beginning, middle and end days, chobok, jungbok and malbok refer to the three hottest days of the season between July and August. On hot summer days, Korean ancestors would escape the heat by resting at places around the waterside or under the cool shades in the forests and eating food that is healthy and restorative. 

In the following four installments of Korea, Today and Tomorrow, we’ll talk about summer-related topics. The first topic we’re going to cover today is summer health foods consumed in North Korea. Here is Yoon Jong-chol, who had worked as a chef at the famous Okryugwan restaurant in North Korea before escaping the country. He arrived in South Korea in 2000 and has run a restaurant specializing in North Korean food since 2015. 

When the traditional three hottest days of the summer approach every year, North Korean media share stories about their origin and associated customs. 

A North Korean media outlet explains that Koreans have traditionally marked the three hottest days of the year by getting plenty of rest during the day to escape the sizzling sun and eat warm food to “fight the heat with heat,” as indicated in the Korean saying. 

One of the signature invigorating foods in North Korea is dangogi, meaning “sweet meat.” It refers to dog meat. 

In North Korea, there is an old saying that an even a drop of dangogi soup spilled on one’s foot can be medicine during hot summer days. A hot bowl of dangogi soup makes you break a sweat. Made with soybean paste, the soup doesn’t smell bad at all. 

Quoting an old historical text about seasonal customs from the Joseon Dynasty, North Korea introduces dangogi as distinctive Korean food that is as valuable as a national treasure. 

North Korean media outlets have also reported the country’s top leaders’ interest in this meat dish. They say regime founder Kim Il-sung, while inspecting a local restaurant, named the dog meat soup as dangogi soup because it is the most delicious and the sweetest meat soup beloved by people. 

There are many dangogi restaurants in Pyongyang, including the Pyongyang Dangogi House that opened in the Rangrang District in Pyongyang in 1992. Located on a 3,000-square-meter site, the huge restaurant with 630 seats is very proud of its dangogi recipes. Here’s a chef at the restaurant. 

It is important to soak the dog meat in water to remove the blood, as the meat gives off a bad smell. Also, the taste depends on how many hours the meat is boiled over high heat. We fully met the requirements and cooked our dishes for the contest today. 

North Korea holds a dangogi cooking contest almost every year. The 2021 event took place at the Pyongyang Noodle House on the jungbok day. Dangogi restaurants in Pyongyang participated in the competition, where as many as dozens of recipes were shown. 

Koreans have traditionally consumed hot bowls of dangogi soup on the three hottest days of summer. Our restaurant put a great deal of effort into preparing dangogi dishes to serve our customers. We teach about the health benefits of dangogi and the way it is processed. We also hold a show to display dozens of dangogi dishes, including steamed meat, to stay true to their authentic, delicious flavor. 

Along with dangogi, a cold chicken soup with mustard and vinegar known as chogyetang is North Korea’s representative health food. Cooked chicken meat is served in a bowl with beef, mung bean jelly and cucumbers in chilled broth. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central TV explains how to cook the dish. 

To make the broth, put cold water in a pot with chicken and boil the water. When the meat is done, take the chicken out. Cool the broth and flavor it with mustard that was already mixed with vinegar and sugar. 

For main ingredients, shred the cooked chicken and season it with salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, green onion and garlic. Marinate chopped beef with seasoning. Make half of the marinated beef into meatballs and cook it. The other half of the beef is fried just the way it is. Fry cucumbers and mushrooms, and make egg garnish by frying the egg whites and yokes separately. 

Spread the mung bean jelly evenly in the bowl and put the fried cucumbers and mushrooms, seasoned chicken slices, meatballs and pear slices in order. Put dried laver, red pepper strips and egg garnish on top and drizzle sesame oil over the decoration. Pour the cold broth and put some pine nuts. Now, chogyetang is done. 

To avoid the summer heat, Korean men traditionally made a spot near a stream or river, where they cast a net to catch fish and made a spicy fish stew. Chef Yoon also enjoyed this old practice called cheonryeop when he was in North Korea. 

We used to go to the Tumen River, caught fish and made a fish stew with cooked rice. We put a lot of ingredients other than fish to make the thick, spicy stew. 

Loach or mudfish soup is another popular dish for the cheonryeop excursion. 

We ate loach soup quite often. The fish lives in the muddy waters of streams and rice paddies. When we went to the river in the summer month of July, we put various seasonal vegetables such as zucchini and chilies in the loach soup. Before going to the river, we would prepare everything that is needed to make a fire and cook the soup. 

It is assumed that Koreans began to eat loaches when they started farming. Loaches were abundant in rivers, rice paddies, lakes and creeks, so the fish, as a food ingredient, was easily accessible by common people. 

The record of loach as an edible food first appears in a report called Illustrated Account of Goryeo written by Xu Jing, an envoy of the Chinese Song Dynasty. The Chinese envoy visited the Korean kingdom of Goryeo in 1123 and wrote the report the following year. The historical record states that noblemen ate meat, while commoners consumed abalones, loaches and clams. 

In North Korea, loach soup had disappeared for some time before it became a local specialty in Gaeseong in the 1970s under then-leader Kim Il-sung’s instruction to revive regional delicacies. In the North, loaches are called “the ginseng in the water,” as they are rich in nutrition. 

In the North, loach soup is one of the most popular summertime menus believed to help boost one’s stamina. North Korea registered the soup as non-material cultural heritage in 2017, stressing the need for diversifying related dishes and encouraging the public to consume it. Loach dish cooking contests are often held in the country. 

North Korea actively promotes loach dishes and restaurants. A YouTube channel presumed to be operated by North Korean authorities has recently introduced a restaurant specializing in loach food. The restaurant is said to have won the loach-related cooking competitions several times. It set up a fish farm inside the facility five years ago to grow loaches on its own. 

North Korea is eager to publicize loaches as a healthy ingredient that helps people replenish their energy depleted in the sweltering heat. 

Many South Koreans may list samgyetang or ginseng chicken soup as the most well-known health summer dish. It is a boiled stew of a young chicken stuffed with a number of health ingredients including ginseng, jujubes and milk vetch roots. After taking a bite of a chicken leg and having the hot soup, you can enjoy the delectable taste and feel wonderfully refreshed as well. North Koreans also eat a health food made of chicken, called dakgom. 

While samgyetang chicken is boiled in water, North Korea’s dakgom uses a double boiler for steaming. A chicken is put in a smaller, earthenware inner pot, with the lid closed. The inner pot is placed in the boiling water within a larger, iron outer pot. The cooking process takes about eight hours. 

When making the North Korean version of ginseng chicken stew, dakgom, the chicken is stuffed with ingredients like medicinal herbs and glutinous rice, just like samgyetang. But dakgom is cooked in a double boiler. Placed in an earthenware inner pot sealed with a lid, the chicken is cooked by its own moisture to maintain the soft yet chewy taste of the meat. 

Dakgom is not served in restaurants, though. Rather, the chicken stew is usually made at home as a health food when a family member is sick or during hot summer days. 

Dakgom uses chicken that feeds on grains like corn or rice at home, so the meat tastes really good. When you see a thick layer of yellow fat rising to the top of the broth, you may feel thankful for the devotion of the person who made it. Dakgom is a specialty delicacy that is not served very often. North Koreans, in general, eat the stew only every few years. The food, as an invigorating food, is given to a family member who falls ill. In South Korea, people can eat chicken every day. But in the North, chickens are not as common.

A scorching heat wave is forecast to grip South Korea this summer. The State Hydro-Meteorological Administration, which is North Korea’s weather agency equivalent to the Korea Meteorological Administration in South Korea, has forecast an intense heat and high temperatures. North Korean media agencies deliver news about hand-held fans and cool snacks that are used to beat the heat. 

We hope people in both South and North Korea will enjoy some health foods to ward off the summer heat and stay healthy.