Comments | samedi: On Chuseok -- Songpyeon & Phytoncides

samedi

On Chuseok -- Songpyeon & Phytoncides

Oct 03, 2009 00:52

Today is the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, also known as Chuseok or the "mid-autumn harvest festival" in Korea. According to my copy of Annual Customs of Korea the holiday's name comes from a portmanteau of the Chinese chu-jung (秋中; "middle autumn") and weol-seok (月夕; "month's evening"), although it was once known by the "pure Korean" ( Read more... )

korean flora & fauna, traditional events (명절), food

Comments 6

pine needles anonymous October 3 2009, 02:31:37 UTC

if you don't want to eat all that rice for your flavinoid fix, you could also get a delicious pine needle soda.

Re: pine needles samedi October 5 2009, 19:06:51 UTC

Good point. Thanks for the addition!

KOC again anonymous October 11 2009, 13:14:13 UTC

wikipedia may talk about everything, and it could have been more than just the aroma but i don't know for sure. They might have done that to kill germs in old days but laying pine leaves under songpyeon is only unique to this songpyeon. If they knew pine aroma has other healthy effects, then they might have done the same to other foods or rice cakes. I have never heard in my life from my parents or parents-in-law about such effects. We just love the aroma. But in these too modern days, not many homes make songpyeon at home in chuseok. They used to buy one from the rice cake shops who make it through machine, so that is why the form used to be so round and even to all songpyeon. I think the last year that I had songpyeon hand-made at home (usually by mother-in-law) would be 2006. In those days family members got together and make songpyeon, so all songpyeon looked different, ha ha..

Re: KOC again samedi October 22 2009, 18:32:06 UTC

Seems I was so caught up in the extra information about pine needles that I got carried away in making assumptions! You know about this subject much better than I do, and you're right that if it was really so beneficial people would use pine needles to cook more than just songpyeon. Thanks for reminding me about that.

Some of my students make songpyeon for Chuseok, and after making some a couple of years ago I'm glad that I don't have to make large quantities of it myself!

Edited to change 'carried in' to 'carried away in' ...

to die anonymous October 11 2009, 13:21:15 UTC

... 죽겠다..
English has the exactly same expression:

배고파 죽겠다 = I am dying with hunger, or I am hungry to death.

힘빠져 죽겠다 = I am totally exhausted to death.

How's that? haha..

KOC

Re: to die samedi October 22 2009, 18:33:03 UTC

Looks like a good alternative!