Writer: Angela Hickman

Date: December 29, 2009

Category: Korean Culture

Title: Patjuk

I was digging around the Internet a little while ago, and IMed my coworker Eun Jung

a link to a ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal post. The tempting photos of the winter

food top ten list made me want to run out of the office and start eating.

“Patjuk! We were supposed to eat that the other day.” Ironically, yummy food number

8 was the only one without a photo.

“We were?” I knew this meant failed to eat this porridge dish on its annual special

day. “You’re supposed to keep track of those things!”

It turns out that patjuk is traditionally eaten on Winter Solstice, the longest night of

the year. The porridge of red (azuki) beans dotted with saealsim (small rice cakes

said to resemble birds’ eggs), is eaten to ward off disease-spreading spirits. A myth,

adopted from the Chinese, tells of a man named Gong Gong whose evil son died,

only to become the god of epidemic diseases. His spirit wreaked havoc until

someone remembered how much he hated red bean porridge. People then started

eating tons of the stuff. A couple of websites even mentioned that folks tossed the

porridge around their houses to ward off evil spirits.

Really? Sounds messy.

Eun Jung thought that sounded odd, and said people sometimes just sprinkled the

dried red beans around.

Ah. Kind of like the Western practice of protection-by-salt.

One cold Saturday, we decided to make up for our lack of juk by wandering

Samcheongdong’s main drag to 서울서 두번째로 잘하는집 (The Second Best Place

in Seoul). The somewhat humble name, according to a Korea Times article, is thanks

to the owner’s belief that her patjuk will always be second best to her mother’s.

Eun Jung and I stood in the tiny front room of the restaurant, stepping to the side as

warm bowls of patjuk whizzed by. I suggested that perhaps we should wait outside,

but Eun Jung said the man behind the counter didn’t want us to have to wait in the

cold. A couple of minutes later, a line started forming on the sidewalk leading to the

door, despite the day’s sub-freezing temperature.

We were soon seated in the back room, an area smaller than my downtown studio.

The packed room had a strange calm, with everyone enjoying relaxed conversations.

An international bunch behind me chatted in English, while Eun Jung heard

Japanese over her shoulder mixed in with the Korean conversations around the

room.

Finally, our patjuk arrived. We lifted the lids off our bowls, revealing a smooth

porridge studded with whole red beans, a chestnut, ginkgo nut and one largish piece

of tteok (rice cake), topped with a friendly dash of cinnamon. And although I heard of

savory versions of red bean juk, this one was pleasantly sweet, tasting particularly

good with the soft chestnut. I scooped up spoonfuls of the red-brown warmth,

rationing the shrinking, sticky ball of tteok. Saving the ginkgo nut for last, however,

might not have been the best idea, as there wasn’t enough sweet juk left to offset its

rather bitter taste. Pushing that minor detail aside, at the end of the meal our

tummies were warm and happy.

Mmm. So this is why everyone is so mellow.

Then we remembered those cold people, queuing outside in hopes of savoring their

own warm bowls of porridge. So we packed up, paid up and headed back out into

the chill of the December afternoon.