Budae-chigae: Korea's Original "Fusion Food"

When it comes to Korean food, I love most of the delectable dishes, which make up your standard fare for Korean cuisine from the hearty vegetable and rice medley of Bibimbap to the tender and tasty strips of Kalbi (Korean-style spare ribs) that you grill at your table.

However, there is one dish, which has always been one of my favorites for as long as I have lived in Korea: Budae-chigae.

In Korea, there are various kinds of chigaes (pronounced chee-gay) or stews like kimchi-chigae (kimchi stew) and sundubu (soon-doo-boo)-chigae (tofu stew) which are quite spicy and served piping hot. Well maybe "piping hot" is a bit of an understatement because at some restaurants, these "chigaes" which are sometimes served in black stone bowls are almost boiling over when they are brought to your table. (The small third-degree burns on the hands and fingers that you see on some of the waitresses and cooks just might be one of the occupational hazards when cooking and handling these boiling bowls of chigae.) These chigaes are both delicious and not too expensive, which is probably one reason why they are so popular to make and eat. Ask most Koreans what their favorite food is and you'll probably get either kimchi-chigae or sundubu-chigae.

Budae-chigae, (pronounced boo-day chee-gay) which can be translated as "camp" or "military" stew is similar to kimchi-chigae (both consist of kimchi, onions, and in some cases small flat rice cakes called ttokk) is often cooked at your table in a large pan resembling a large hubcap or an upside down cymbal and shared by two or more people.

Although a lot of Korean food is served in individual servings, some dishes like Budae-chigae, Bulgogi (grilled beef/that is similar to Japanese yaki-niku), Kalbi, and Buldalk (spicy morsels of grilled chicken sometimes referred to as "fire chicken")-all of which are cooked at your table-are meant for more than two people. Indeed, some restaurants will even refuse to serve you one of these dishes unless you order two servings. Perhaps it has to do with the "eating culture" in Korea where many people eat together and share food like the side dishes of kimchi as well other pickled vegetables known as ban-chan. One way of knowing if a restaurant is good enough or not is proportionate to the number of ban-chan dishes served with your meal.

However, what makes Budae-chigae special (and very tasty) I suppose is the history of this dish. During the Korean War, many Korean soldiers did not have much to eat other than kimchi, rice, and other vegetables. Meat was scarce. Either some Korean soldiers who were KATUSA's (Korean Augmentees to the U.S. Army) and assigned to American military units (to help facilitate communication between the two armies) scrounged for meat such as Spam and hot dogs from their American counterparts or were given this meat made a stew out of it with the kimchi, vegetables, and noodles (later ramen).

Given this historical backdrop, Budae-chigae epicureans often talk and rave about Uijongbu Budae-chigae as being the best and rightfully so: Uijongbu was the birthplace of this spicy stew. Located about an hour north of Seoul, Uijongbu was an important and strategic area during the Korean War for both US and Korean forces and today, is still the headquarters of the US Second Infantry Division at Camp Red Cloud. Although the stew could have originated any place where US and Korean forces were stationed together, it would be Uijongbu that would forever be associated with this chigae. In fact, the name Uijongbu Budae-chigae has become synonymous with this stew no matter where the restaurant is located and one can find any number of Uijongbu Budae-chigae restaurants throughout Korea-from Seoul all the way down to Pusan.

And how does it taste? There's no getting around the spicy flavor of the red pepper paste and kimchi that comprises this stew, but the Spam and hot dogs round off that spicy, zesty taste and actually, Spam has probably never tasted better. It is no surprise then why boxed gift sets of Spam are presented as gifts during the Korean Thanksgiving and Lunar (Chinese) New Year. Spam gifts aside, it is a tasty stew given the assortment of ingredients (I prefer some dubu/tofu in mine as well as lots of onions and ham).

Created behind the lines and in the military camps of the Korean War, to this day Budae-chigae remains a very popular dish (it has undergone a few ingredient improvements like adding fresh pork and ground beef) especially with students and office workers during lunch.

Hmm...sounds like Budae-chigae was Korea's first fusion food.