잘 먹어세요!!

Dear Mom and Dad,

   It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a letter here, sorry ‘bout that!  Lately it seems these posts have been pretty long and heavy reading.  Again, sorry ‘bout that.    So today I thought I’d write something short and sweet.  Or something like that….

   I was sitting at lunch today thinking of all the things I was eating on my tray with my chopsticks.  And while I’ve been able to use chopsticks for many years, it’s never been a constant in my eating habits and I would occasionally have to re-learn how to use them.  Now, living in Korea for 2 years, I use chopsticks everyday and I think I actually prefer them for some things that I never would have considered before.  Now before I continue on that line, I just want to say that Korea is different from its neighbors, in that place settings here include a long handled spoon that is used for both rice and soup.  This helps many-a ham handed chopstick individual. Also the chopsticks are thin and metal.  Metal complicates things a bit, but with the spoon at least you won’t starve here in Korea.

 On the other hand, there is dining etiquette with chopsticks that visitors should be aware of. One is never point your chopsticks at someone.  It’s kinda like pointing at someone with your finger, it’s just plain rude.  And number two, (all that I’m going to get into today) don’t hold your spoon and chopsticks in the same hand at the same time. How you can be talented enough to do this without making a tremendous mess, I don’t know.

So, onto the list.  Of course, I’ve used chopsticks for the usual course of foods that most westerners associate with chopsticks, (the individual bites of firm foods) but it goes WAAAYY beyond that.  Things like soup noodles, spaghetti and other pastas, salads (this makes fantastic sense!) including individual lettuce leaves, fruit, cake, and squirming octopus legs.  I can now debone a fish with the average of them and I can cut a pork cutlet with just a pair of chopsticks in one hand.  I can spear tiny quail eggs and cherry tomatoes in a single jab and chew on chicken wings with my chopsticks.  

The only thing I haven’t mastered completely and probably never will is eating acorn jelly (it has the consistency of jello) I can snatch a piece of 전 from a distance and chew my way around a bone in the 고기, but jello, still not happening!

한번 먹어보세요!