Somewhere last week I and Stefan ordered some take-away food at a local Korean restaurant. It was not an unknown restaurant, as we already ordered some bulgogi at the same place a few weeks before. This time we wanted to try something different.
There was one dish that caught our eye, it carried the name: 'Army Stew'. As big stew enthusiasts, we had to and would order this unfamiliar dish. The result was quite staggering. It was so shocking I felt the obligation to dedicate this week’s Edit to this dish, Korean Army Stew or Budea Jjigae.
Surprise, Surprise
Arrived home, we started unpacking the mysterious stove. We took the following ingredients from the bag with excitement:
Instant Ramen
A sauce consisting of rice wine, soy sauce, Korean chili paste & flakes, garlic and sugar
A broth
Enoki mushrooms
Kimchi
Sliced Tofu
Green onion
So far so good right? Well, here it comes…
Hotdogs
SPAM
Breakfast Sausage
2 slices of American Cheddar (those plastic ones)
Baked Beans
As you can understand, our excitement quickly shifted towards perplexity. We looked at each other and both thought: 'Is this some sort of joke?' It turned out not to be... On the contrary, somehow this is one of the most popular dishes in Korea.
Let us discover how this dish came about.
Korean War
It all begins with the Korean War that took place between 1950 and 1953, a war between North Korea and South Korea. North Korea received supported troops from the Republic of China and the Soviet Union. On the other side of the border, South Korea was backed by the United Nations. And so American Soldiers were stationed in South Korea.
Reinforcements
North Korea's army consisted of almost 240,000 soldiers, 274 tanks, 200 artillery pieces, 110 bombers, 150 Yak's, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft. Opposing, South Korea only had 98.000 and 22 fighter jets. But hey, South Korea had almost every European country plus the United States covering their back.
First Move
With North Korea thinking they had a significant advantage in manpower they started invading South Korea on the 25th of June and it went very well. In just a month and a half, North Korea occupied 90% of South Korea. All hope and pugnacity seemed gone and lost.
But, the North Korean offensive was bleeding. The advance cost North Korea an awful lot of soldiers and the supply routes got longer and longer.
Counter
'Time to strike,' was what the American Commander in Chief Douglas MacArthur, nicknamed American Ceasar, was thinking. Huge numbers of reinforcements from the United Nations and the United States arrived in South Korea. It didn't take long before MacArthur managed to push the North Korean forces back to the Chinese borders.
End of the War
With China now directly involved, the war raged on for 2 more years. Douglas MacArthur was disestablished in 1951 because he was making secret plans to invade China with the use of nuclear weapons.
In 1953 the war ended in a truce. Partly because of the death of the Russian leader Stalin and an inhumane attack of the Americans, napalm.
Aftermath
After the truce which took place in Panmunjeom the European, Chinese, Russian, and American troops returned to their homes leaving a shattered country behind.
The economy grew sluggish, there were many political corruptions, food became scarce and many Koreans were starving. South and North Korea both became very dependent on aid from the United States. The aftermath of this 3-year war was huge.
The Creation
Many Koreans dwelled around the former occupied US army bases. These people found lots of surplus foods still laying there. You guessed it, this mainly existed of processed meat products like ham, hot dogs, and SPAM along with canned baked beans.
Small markets nearby the army bases started to sell these types of products. These canned luncheon meats were much cheaper than normal meat, which was also almost impossible to find during that time. And thus became an important food source for the surrounding residents at that time. This is how Budea Jjigae became a survival dish.
Level-up
It didn't take long before the Koreans started to experiment with the processed meat variants. Since processed meat doesn't have a lot of taste the Koreans began adding chili sauce and spices to water to add more flavor to the relatively hollow and uninspiring taste of luncheon meat.
Unions, butter, cabbage, and makgeolli (cloudy rice wine) were ingredients of the first version of Army Stew. Later on, ingredients like kimchi, gochujang, and enoki mushrooms got added to the Stew. This is the version we know nowadays.
(Dis)Agree?
As you can understand from the introduction of this Edit, Stefan and I aren't big fans of this stew. And we assumed that every person with a somewhat specific tasting pattern would agree with us.
Turns out somehow the whole world loves it, including Anthony Bourdain.
"It's the ultimate dorm food. Just looking at the ingredients might make it sound like a horror, but it very quickly comes together and becomes delicious"
Army Stew now
Nowadays Budea Jjigae is one of the staple dishes of Korea. The city of Uijeongby even has a street called Budea-jjigae Street which is, of course, filled with restaurants where you can get Army Stew.
Many Koreans are proud of this dish and I can sure understand why. Not because of the ingredients but because of its history. It is a dish that has been created in one of the darkest times for Koreans. A dish that kept many Koreans alive and healthy.
But not every Korean is proud of this dish. One person even calls it Garbage Stew instead of Army Stew and refuses to eat it as it reminds her of such a bad and dark period. If you want to know more about her story, click on the following link
Last words...
You may have noticed this is our 10th edit again since our last break. Writing an edit is pretty time-consuming and this doesn't always fit with our study program. That's why we decided to push back an edit weekly to by weekly, so every 2 weeks 1 edit. This also enables us to focus more time on broadening our table.