Meat of All Varieties

Koreans have no understanding of meat.

None.

Not an inkling of a clue.

In fact, if you were to place them outside of Korea, i'm fairly certain they would mistake apples for ham.

Now, this may seem a bit harsh, but let me paint a picture for you: my english friend Liz is a pescetarian so she doesn't eat meat other than seafood (which is the only realistic way to be a veggie here in Korea) so she ordered a seafood pizza, some others ordered, I ordered a canadian bacon and cheese pie, and we sat down to wait. Well everyone's food came out in shifts, scallop and mussel spaghetti, seafood pizza, spaghetti bolognese, and so many other delicious delicacies. The smells of italian sauces and garlic were wafting up my nose from all directions when my food and Liz's arrived about the same time. My pizza was less pizza and more egg quiche thing with a twist, which was a surprise but a delicious surprise; but Liz's seafood pizza had ham. Yes ham. Now it's extremely possible i've complained about the ham problem here before but it's a real epidemic!! They don't think ham is meat!!! Who in their right mind doesn't think ham is meat?!!? It comes from a pig!!!

Another ham incident happened in July when I was planning my summer camp for the kids, I wanted to make sandwiches with them so that they could partake in some real American food. Eunyeong and I were in the super market getting ingredients: bread, peanut butter, mayo, lettuce, and then we got to the ham she asked me; "How do we cook this? Boil it? Bake it?" She was dead serious. I stared at her uncomprehending what she was asking me, I finally found my tongue jammed in the back of my throat, unjammed it and explained sandwich ham. I guess they just eat pig differently here, it's perplexing, but extremely comical!

Another thing that's perplexing beyond belief is the way that they eat fish here.
They don't de-bone it.
They just cook it.
The entire thing,
and then chop it into thirds.
I mean, they literally cook the entire fish, head and all. I frequently see fish eyes staring at me from beneath a simmering mound of potatoes and leafy vegetables. WHO DOES THAT?! The first time I saw those creepy little fish eyes peering up at me pitifully from my pan I choked on my kimchi (which is a less-than pleasant experience as kimchi can be extremely spicy). I have no explanation behind this reasoning, I have asked around and no one seems to understand why they do this. Eunyeong didn't understand why anyone would de-bone a fish in the first place so turning to Koreans as a last resort was a failure: 질배-Shil Pae, in Korean (I hope). They don't eat sushi the way I expected them to either, they have these trucks with giant fish tanks in the beds of them and they extract a fish from the tank, chop it's head off, take out the main spine (but none of the other bones), slice the fish into strips (flesh and all), wrap it in mint leaves, add some spicy bean curd, wrap it up like a gift, and pop it into their mouths. Now don't get me wrong, this is actually very delicious, but it takes my mouth for a spin. I have to navaigate mint stem, fish flesh, tiny fish bones, and the occasional bitten cheek. It's just such an adventure whenever I go out eating!! Sheesh!!

Anyeong!!