erin, two: gross korean food, zero

those faithful followers of this here blog will remember my initial freak out about certain korean foodstuffs. recall if you will the mysterious crunchy noodles and shrimp-eyeballs-and-all that lead to the creation of erin's rules of korean dining:

1. don't ask, don't tell
2. i won't eat eyeballs

overall i have extremely enjoyed korean cuisine. however. given my rules, there were two specific korean treats that i was dead-set against ever letting cross my lips:

1. bondaegi. aka steamed silkworm larvae. the smell of this stuff permeates every corner of every quaint little market in korea. i can smell it from 10 stalls away and oh barf.

2. three words: live. baby. octopus. this stuff you have to chew really really well, otherwise it will attach itself to your esophagus on the way down, and possibly choke you.

i don't know what has come over me. but i ate them both this week. i think it must be like how when i started working at burger king in high school i didn't like hamburgers, french fries, dr. pepper, pickles, fried chicken sandwiches, mustard, tomatoes, or mayonnaise; but then after working there for three years i developed a taste for all those things, to the lament of my thighs.
(sidenote: i am currently reading eats shoots and leaves and i felt like i should use a semicolon there. is it right? or, more importantly, do i care?)



to my credit, i only wanted to eat the octopus. kg made me eat bondaegi in seoul against my will, i do declare. and i would eat live baby octopus every day for the rest of my life if it meant i never had to eat or smell bondaegi ever ever again. blech!

i mean, seriously, do i look like i want to eat this? do i? seriously kg. seriously.


i ate this stuff on the sidewalk with not a chaser in sight.
it was all i could do not to hurl my dolsot bibimbap.
i kid you not, it was the grossest thing i have ever eaten. ever.

then on sunday it was off to a "whay" bar (raw fish bar) for live baby octopus with my friend david. you go in and you select the fish you want to kill and eat with your bare hands from these tanks.



so after you pick out and name your fish
(harold the flat-fish-with-both-eyes-on-the-top-of-his-head and henry the octopus, in our case)
you take your new friends over to the men with knives who nicely chop them up for you while you wait and watch. then you go sit down and good luck to you all that you chew them up properly.


it took me a while to get started, but once i did, live baby octopus is actually pretty cool to eat. you can leave it on your tongue and the suction cups will suck right onto that baby. it was so weird and so cool and possibly cruel.
it was salty.
it was an experience.
but i didn't eat the eyeballs.

video fun section!

1. erin torments a dying animal with chopsticks
2. erin's first bite of food that is still moving
3. david lets it all hang out


i sure can't wait for my dad to get here, boy howdy! . . .