[Enjoy Food] Black Pork & Horse Cuisine

Jeju Island has a unique culture of food!

Black Pork&Horse Cuisine

Jeju Island has a unique culture of food due to the geographic characteristics of the island and its unusual natural environment. Even today, citizens of Jeju Island maintain this unique, traditional flavor reflecting the island’s nature in their life.

Black Pork

Many tourists, on the first time on Jeju, wonder where the best place is to try the island’s delicious black pork. Sometimes, if you go by travel book recommendation it feels that something is missing and if you go to a totally unknown restaurant, you cannot be assured of the taste. In this situation, if you want a clear reply, the answer would be to “just go anywhere.” Wherever you go on Jeju, you can find delicious black pork restaurants. The meat is even more delicious if you eat it with Mel-jeot, which is a salted anchovy that reduces the pork’s oiliness and makes it tastier.

Horse Cuisine

Dishes made using horse were the finest served to the King in times of antiquity. Horse is used in a variety of dishes, including raw horse meat, horse sushi, tangsuyuk (sweet and sour meat), galbijjim (rib stew), gui (roast meat) and bulgogi (sliced and seasoned barbequed meat). Horse meat tastes lighter than beef and each part and organ, such as the liver, has its own unique flavor.

[Talk Talk Market) Maeil Olle Market in Seogwipo

Maeil Olle Market in Seogwipo

At the heart of the walking trend in Korea is the Jeju Olle path. The Olle path-walking craze has improved business for a traditional market in Jeju and even resulted in its changing the name.

Initially held every five days from 1965, the market turned into a regular market named Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market. The emergence of large-scale marts and modernized distribution chains had taken away customers, but the popularity of Olle path and the arrival of those wanting to walk on this natural road revitalized the market.

Located in the downtown of Seogwipo in Jeju, the market is located on the route of the 6th Jeju Olle course (Soesokkak- Oedolgae). A leisurely walk inside the market offers an Olle experience among people’s daily lives.

To promote an ‘Olle culture,’ the market strictly complies with its business principles of marking the source of production and prohibiting cars after noon. These principles were set to guarantee honesty in transactions and to create an atmosphere where people can walk in the market at ease. A stream runs through the market, one meter wide and 100 meters long. It is the first such ecological space established in a traditional market in Korea.  

Major shopping items


Omaegitteok (A chewy rice cake dough colored in green using mugwort, filled with a red bean paste, and then covered with pounded red bean), mandarin oranges, fresh seafood (hairtail, tile fish, eel, hagfish)

Nearby attractions
Lee Joong Seop Gallery, Cheonjiyeon Falls, Oedolgae Rock, Soesokkak Estuary

Related Columns
Jeju Olle

Transportation
Take limousine bus #600 from Jeju International Airport → Get off at Seogwipo New Gyeongnam Hotel (서귀포 뉴경남호텔) bus stop (travel time: 1 hr 20 min) and walk 10 min.

[Enjy KOREA] Boseong Green Tea Festival

Boseong Green Tea Festival - Boseong Market

Boseong, the largest tea producing region, started Korea's first tea culture festival in its tea fields on May 12, 1985. The festival consists of various events such as ritual for bumper crop, tea leaf harvest, tea making, Miss Green Tea Competition, etc. The festival is held every May.

 

 

There are plenty of hands-on programs prepared for participants: tea leaf harvest, green tea making, beauty care with green tea, green tea cookie baking, green tea soap making, learning etiquettes of drinking tea, hanji (Korean traditional paper) craft, natural dyeing, green tea tasting, etc.

 

There is more to Boseong than just the hands-on programs, it is the wide and vast green fields enchanting visitors to do nothing but just capturing photos. Do you want to be enchanted with the natural beauty? Plan your trip to Boseong in May.

[Enjoy Food] Jjangddungeo Tang (shuttles hoppfish soup)

Jjangddungeo Tang (shuttles hoppfish soup) - Boseong Market

Jjangttungeo or shuttles hoppfish is also called "loach of the sea" or "mini seal" since it's strong enough to crawl or even hop on the mud.

Jjangttungeo is the only fish that hibernates from early November to April. Also, it cannot be farmed so it must be caught.

Jjangttungeo tang is made by boiling fillet with spice, unlike loach soup which boils grinded fish. What's good about jjangttungeo tang is that it has no fishy smell. The soup goes well with soju(distilled liquor made from grains). One could have a try when you tour to Korea.

Tip
Jjangttungeo is caught between mid-April and mid-October,

and it is the fattiest in September.

Thus, September is the time to enjoy the fish as a stew or grill.

[TalkTalk Market] Boseong Market

Boseong Market

 

 

 

Opened in 1955, Boseong Market was chosen as a "Cultural Tourism Market" in 2009 since it was located near natural tourist attractions such as green tea fields and Mt. Jeamsan. Most of all, it is located in Boseong, the cultural hometown of world famous pansori (Korean traditional vocal and percussional music performance). Local agricultural products as well as seafood caught from Deukryang Gulf are traded in the market, such as shallot, potato, kiwi, strawberry, green tea, linen, kkomak (ark shell clam) and nokdon (green tea-fed pork).

Boseong Market has linked local specialty shops with places of interest such as green tea fields, Yulpo beach, Beolgyo (the setting of Korea's one of the greatest novels "Taebaeksanmaek"), Mt. Ilimsan (the habitat of royal azalea), Mt. Jeamsan Recreational Forest, and Daewonsa buddhist temple, etc. Furthermore, the market established concert stages and experiential learning activities to add more flavor.