February 2, 2024 • 38 mins
This dish of marinated, barbecued beef doesn’t necessarily need to be barbecued, and it doesn’t need to be beef. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and science behind bulgogi.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to save your prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm more in Vogelbaum, and today we have an
episode for you about Bulgogie.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, yes, fun with pronunciations for sure, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes, I don't know Korean, as it turns out, and
so that is going to be a theme throughout this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yes, it will be, It will be. Was there any
particular reason this was on your mind? Lord? Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
You know, I think I've been wanting to do Beban
Bop for a while, but it's a little bit trickier
to nail down. This seemed as I was getting into
it famous last words, like it was going to be
relatively straightforward. I love I love Korean food. Here in Atlanta,
We're lucky to have a number of amazing Korean restaurants.
(00:58):
And yeah, the cravings in this one, Yes, the cravings, Yes,
very much.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I remember the first time I had bolgolgy, and it's
been bolin is to thank for this our colleague and
friend D and D compatriot because I've said a million times,
but I came from a small town. There was no
book golgy to be had there. And when I came
to Atlanta, I got introduced to all these things, but
(01:32):
I remember it was Ben Bolin. I think you kind
of mentioned it in passing and I was like, oh,
what is that? I want that? And I loved it.
And at the time you could get it at Trader
Joe's not a sponsor, and I would get it there
and cook it for my family. But my older brother
there was something in there that, like his stomach didn't
(01:53):
sit well with making. But it was a very beautiful
period of mind when I discovered bulgogi.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I don't think I had had any
before before I was in Atlanta because right, yeah, I
also did not have access to that cuisine when I
was growing up.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And it was.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Actually it was actually a coworker at like the job
I had before.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
How stuff works.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So a full fifteen ish years ago, I had a
co worker from South Korea who was like, oh, man,
we have to go to this restaurant. But he was yeah,
in Boston at the time, so but yeah, but then
I came back here and I was like, oh, this
is everywhere cool.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, not hard to find. We're very lucky, as
you said, Yes, you can see our episodes we've done
on things like kim chi for more context and GoChi jang. Yes,
but I guess that brings us to our question, Sure,
bull golgi, what is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, googie is a type of dish made of very thin,
bite sized slices of meat, usually beef, marinated in a savory, sweet,
pungent salty sauce made from soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger,
and sesame oil, among other seasonings. The meat is then
usually grilled until tender, with a little crisp and char
at the edges, maybe a tiny bit saucy from the marinade.
(03:24):
It's often served family style or even cooked on a
mini grill like at the table, with a range of
accompaniments including steamed white rice, large leaf lettuce, various spicy
pickled vegetables, and various sauces for dipping in or drizzling.
You like make yourself little lettuce wraps with a little
bit of everything you want in each bite. It can
also be served over a bowl of rice, maybe made saucier,
(03:46):
or you can cook the marinated beef into a soup.
You can use other proteins or add mixins to the
marinade like sliced onion or mushrooms. It is so satisfying,
Like you eat beef. This is just a perfect preparation
of it, you know, like meltingly tender, chewy and with
fatty richness tempered by those sweet, funky, tart spicy flavors.
(04:12):
You get some crunch from the lettuce and the pickles,
some soft fluff from the rice. It's almost like it's
like meat noodles. It's like it's like if perfect stir
fried flat noodles were made of the best barbecue you've
had in your life.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It's just a perfect comfort food.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It's like it's like when the heat picks on and
you put yourself just right in front of the radiator
or like on top of the heat vent and just
instant full body warmth.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Well, now you've made the cravings worse anytime. It's a skilled.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I was so mad the entire time I was doing
this reading, Like I was like, don't you cannot order.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Und right now? Okay?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Anyway, okay, So, so bulgogi is a type of a
quick cooking barbecue. You're you're looking to get your main
ingredient to a place where it'll cook through in just
a couple of minutes and be nice and tender and
in bite sized pieces. Beef is the most traditional, you know,
like a something already tender with nice marbling is preferred
(05:30):
like a like a cut like a ribbi or sirloin,
and then cut as thin as possible against the grain.
Some recipes will recommend freezing a steak for a little
bit before cutting it to help. Some recommend using an
electric meat slicer to get it really thin. Tougher cuts
of beef can be marinated for longer, though chicken is
also common, as is often spicier marinated pork. I've seen
(05:52):
recipes for vegetarian versions too, using some kind of vegetarian
protein substitute or sliced mushrooms and peppers and onions, something
like that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Then the marinade. Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
The ingredients can vary by personal taste or regional or
family recipe, but commonly you we'll start with soy sauce
for salt and savory flavors as well, some kind of bright,
clean tasting rice wine, maybe some brown sugar to help
balance the saltiness, sesame oil, grated garlic and ginger, and
a little bit of black pepper. You might also add
(06:24):
things like gucci jung, which is a spicy from a
did chili pepper sauce, or maybe the juice or puree
of things like Asian pear or kiwi or sesame seeds
for extra naughty punch. Yeah, sometimes you'll blend the sauce
into a smooth liquid. Sometimes you won't. End then marinad
science all right, as we've as we've talked about before
(06:48):
in our episodes about various meat dishes turkey, pastrami, saviche,
fried chicken, others. Sure, I don't know. There are a
number of ways to muck around with protein molecules in
your food, either before or instead of heating them up
in order to make your finished product what you want
(07:10):
it to be. Acids and alcohols will make protein fibers
kind of clamp up. Salt and some enzymes found in
various fruits and vegetables like Asian pears and kiwis and
the recently discussed papaya will make those fibers relax. In
the case of bulgogie, you're exposing such thin and cross
(07:33):
grain slices of meat to the marinade so that the
proteins in them are in much more in direct contact
with those things than they would be if you were
marinating like a whole steak or like a chicken thigh
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
That's why a lot of recipes call for only marinating
your protein for a short period of time, like half
an hour. More time might start to affect the texture
of the meat. But depending on what protein you're using,
or you know your personal taste, you might want to
affect the texture of meat. And I can't tell you
what to do. In the proportions that that things go
into Bulgogi marinade, the effect is going to be overall
(08:07):
relaxing on the proteins due to salt and possibly that
fruit enzyme content. I think any alcohol in there is
really just for its own flavor and or to like
help with sauce caramelization. If anyone wants to do a
scientific study on this, I welcome you to.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I dare you.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
The Internet is really full of really confusing, conflicting information
about marinades, and I couldn't really find anything about you know,
what happens in a cross section of beef like this.
So here we are, yeah, okay, cooking the thing. Yeah,
(08:48):
so all right, you add your thin sliced whatever to
your marinade and let it soak. You might also add
sliced onion or mushroom or other vegetables. At this point,
after whatever amount of time you deem appropriate, you remove
the stuff from the sauce and cook it quickly on
a grill preferably heated by charcoal to get a little
bit of that flavor in there. Yeah, and then it
can be served simply over rice, usually at that point
(09:10):
with a couple of vegetable side dishes, or alongside rice,
often with leaf lettuce to make handheld wraps, and then
with a kimchi or other fermented vegetables and sauces like
some jong, which is a type of a spicy, funky
condiment made with fermented soybean paste and gochu jong and
other stuff that's often served or pretty much always served
(09:31):
with lettuce wraps. A note here that I've been saying lettuce,
but the leaf wrap does not have to be lettuce
at Any leafy green that's good, either fresh or steamed
or blanched, could be used, depending on what's local and
deemed tasty. For this traditional approach, either in restaurants or
at home, you might have a small grill either built
(09:51):
into the table or like portable and brought to the table,
and each diner might grill or pluck off their own
pieces as they go as they're eating. The grill top
and be graded or like a dome that allows cooking
liquid to collect in a ring around the bottom. Though
from what I understand, this table side stick is considered
sort of old fashioned and a little kitchy by South
(10:11):
Koreans these days. I get the idea like sort of
in the way that we perceive fondue and is often
reserved for special occasions. Yes, Korea is where this dish
is from. But yeah, yeah, you can do whatever else
you want with marinated stuff. You know, you can cook
(10:32):
it in a stove top pan if that's what you've got.
You can leave the marinade in to make a nice sauce.
You can add some nice glass type noodles to make
a noodles sort of stir fry. You can toss your
cooked stuff in a sandwich bun, well, googi, philly, I
don't know. Or instead of a stovetop or grill top,
you can add the raw pieces to a hot pot
(10:53):
or or otherwise to some kind of hot broth for
a soup situation, and depending on the region of Korea
you're in, this might be the more traditional preparation.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
You can.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, so this is both a home and a restaurant product.
You can also buy bottled bulgogie sauce. Markets catering to
Koreans all over the world sell pre sliced and marinated
bulgogi meat that's like ready to cook. You can also
find ready to heat bulgogi frozener refrigerated.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It's out there, it is, it is indeed.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Oh well, what about the nutrition, Oh, it depends. You know,
usually lots of protein can be heavy on the fats
and salts, depending It'll definitely help fill you up, you know,
Drink water, eat, eat a vegetable, get down, let us
yeah or whatever, leafy green whatever. Yeah, well, we do
(11:44):
have some numbers.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
For you, we do.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Okay, So, I did a lot of reading for this one, y'all,
and I read a lot of numbers, but like really
dynamic ones, we're a little bit hard to isolate around
this dish specifically, but okay is a very popular food
in South Korea and also a very popular Korean dish
in foreign cultures. You know, people people like barbecue So
(12:11):
for example, in nineteen ninety six, the South Korean Ministry
of Culture and Sports named bulgogi one of the top
ten symbols of Korea. As of twenty twenty three, Jaiju AYR,
which is a budget airliner out of South Korea, bulgogi
over rice had been the most popular in flight meal
(12:32):
for five years running, comprising a full quarter of in
flight food sales YEA. And in a study out of
South Korea nineteen ninety five, of eleven Korean dishes sampled
by American study participants, the participants rated bulgogi the tastiest. Also,
(12:54):
between nineteen eighty and two thousand and five, the New
York Times mentioned bulgog forty seven times. The only Korean
foods mentioned more often during that period were kim chi
and scallion pancakes. Oh yeah, yeah, also delicious. But all
of that was Those two American examples, anyway, were before
(13:19):
the really big surge in Korean culture internationally referred to
as the Korean Wave or sometimes by the Chinese term
how you, and that started in the early two thousands. So,
just for example, like a market study found that American
interest in Korean cuisine spiked almost ninety percent during twenty
(13:40):
twenty one alone, just about doubled that year. A different
survey from the end of twenty twenty two found that
in twenty six countries around the world, about three quarters
of respondents said the Korean cuisine is either very or
moderately popular where they live, and a survey of wave
(14:00):
trends overall found that as of twenty twenty three, Korean
food was the most popular cultural item outside of the Peninsula,
capturing some forty nine percent of the public's interest. That
was followed by music and movies. Wow, it's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah,
it's I I like food, so I can't really argue,
(14:23):
but you.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Know, yeah, oh wow. Well, if you want to learn
more about this. Incidentally, we did talk about this K
wave and K pop and K dramas over on Spin
d oh cool. Stefan never told you, so you wanted
to learn more about that. Yeah, it's pretty big deal.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, a little bit big deal, A little bit, just
a little bit of a thing, huh.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, uh huh. Well, we do have a history for you.
We've got a history.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We heckn do, and we are going to get into
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay,
So this one was quite a history to wrangle. Yes, yep,
as mentioned pronunciation fun times for us, but historians believe
that Bulgogi's origins go all the way back to the
evolution of a meat preparation similar to Kabob's first US
(15:31):
in Korea, sometime between thirty seven BCE UH to six
six eight six hundred and sixty eight CE. I don't
know why I mixed up my numbers like that sometimes,
but you know what I.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Mean, it's it's fun. Saying numbers out loud is really wild.
Just try it if y'all aren't used to reading a
number out loud. It's it's really wacky.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
We promised.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's not just us, but okay, that that time span
is because this was in the ancient kingdom of Golguryu,
which ruled during that period in the north central part
of the Korean Peninsula and then up further north into
what's now like China Russia.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Right, and this preparation was called mechchuk and consisted of
pre marinated, skewerd roasted meat. Over time, the meat was
marinated and soaked in water perhaps three times according to
some things I read, and it usually came into a
brothy dish. So that was a long time ago, big
(16:33):
time skip. By the twentieth century, this dish evolved again
into a very thinly sliced, marinated, seasoned, and charboled meat
that was much loved by the well off, called neo biani.
And again I looked up. I even watched videos in
Korean and was trying to find where's the pronunciation. I'm
very sorry if I butchered it. I did not discover it.
(16:56):
We try, we try, we do try, but always write
in US. Oh yeah, yeah. The seasoning typically called for salt, pepper,
soy sauce, garlic, scallion, sesame oil, sugar, and pear juice,
which was yes, largely Asian pear from what I understand, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Asian pear also called the apple pear or sand pear,
among other common names. The botanical name is Pyris pyrifolia,
and they're those large, roundish, golden speckled pears that often
come individually wrapped in like the weird little like webbing
kind of stuff to keep them fresh. Yeah, they're crisp
like an apple and have this really nice, delicate, sweet
(17:33):
tart sort of flavor, adding it adding it to the
ever growing.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
List I love I love an Asian pear. Oh my goodness,
me too. Yeah, yeah, but okay. This is where a
series of complicated factors came into play to eventually arrive
at what we now know as bolgogi, which can refer
to both the brothy dish and the straight up grilled meat.
(17:58):
One of the big things about this was the increasing
widespread availability and commercialization of beef in Korea beginning in
the nineteen twenties and thirties. Previously, cows were too limited
and important to not use for their labor in the region.
As the population of cattle grew, though, naturally, beef ended
up in more dishes and it was accessible for more folks,
(18:21):
especially in bigger cities where early records show people were
raising beef specifically for their meat. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
The twenties and thirties were during Japan's colonization of Korea,
which happened from nineteen ten through the end of World
War Two, and due to a number of factors around
industrialization and harsh Japanese rule, a lot of people during
this time were moving from rural to urban areas, and
so food ways were changing.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Right, And at the same time, bulgogi was becoming cemented
in dining out culture and thus commercialized as well. Bulgogi
continued to evolve pretty much splitting along those to basic
pass the one with the broth and the roasted dish.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, because beef was becoming more available, like production of
a lot of stuff was on the rise, but meat
would have still been expensive for the average person, And
at this time the roasted type of bulgogie was probably
considered like a side dish instead of a maine And
it's similarly like a soup is a really tasty way
to stretch a limited amount of meat?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yes, yes, it is. The rise of iron production and
the long standing popularity of certain broths and stews is
also believed to have had a key in popularizing bulgogi.
The term bulgogi first appeared in a written document in
nineteen twenty two, so the context kind of suggests that
it had been used to refer to any type of
(19:47):
roasted meat, like, not just the thinly sliced we would
think of.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, it's a little bit difficult to tell from the
piece in question because Okay, this wasn't a short story
that appeared like in a literary magazine in nineteen twenty two.
And I love this reference. In the story, the narrator
refers to his romantic rivals expression like facial expression as
(20:12):
they're entering this sort of polite but tense public standoff,
and the narrator says, this is in translation. Perhaps obviously
his face was like a lump of bulgogie being cooked
over brightly burning charcoal.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's great, right, because it's like you can see it.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, yes, but right, so it's hard to tell exactly
what type of cut of meat is being referred to
by that. It's a sick burn, is what we can say.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Uh. The Memoir of the first Mayor of Soul Sokria
mentions bulgogi and meat broth in reference to a dish
he had in nineteen twenty six while visiting Korean relatives
in Hawaii. It was written later, though, So that's one
of those things where it's.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Like, yeah, because he wrote it in the nineteen eighties,
the memoir, and so like rite what it was and
what his project is.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, exactly. A nineteen twenty seven text out of Japan
suggests that bulgogi was sold commercially and widely available in
Korean restaurants.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, a bulgogi was adapted into Japanese cuisine under the
name yakimiku. So if you've ever had that in a
Japanese restaurant, that's bulgogi basically.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah uh, and I love this fact. A nineteen thirty
five article detailed an incident in which bolgogi was banned
in a famous Pyongyang amusement park because it was believed
that the smoke from cooking bolgogi in the open air
was drying out in the nearby trees. So what we
can take from this at least is that the grilled
(21:57):
or roasted version was the specialty of the serial, or
at least it was pretty it was well known. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
There are a few other documents other than this, like
park band Yeah that.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Plays the grilled version in that city. Right. Also, bulgogi
was mentioned in the nineteen thirties pop song, which again
goes to show that it was well known at the time.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I love this one too, Okay. The singer of the
song A Lady is talking about this rude guy, possibly
a boyfriend. It's it's sort of like no scrubs like
the bulgogi version. And one of the things that the
that the lady says about this guy is that he
like he eats all of her side dishes, like he
eats the bulgogi and the rice cakes and gives her
(22:43):
only bean sprouts.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Oh no, yeah, get out of there. That's not acceptable,
not at all. I love this, okay.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
However, after World War Two, there were a lot of
serious supply shortages, especially of expensive things like beef. This
was during the Division of Korea very basically after the
Second World War ended. The Allies kicked to Japan out
and split the peninsula into the USSR run zone in
the north and the United States run zone in the south,
(23:20):
which was supposed to be temporary but led to the
divide between North and South Korea that continues to this
day and also more immediately directly to the Korean War
in the early nineteen fifties. So all of these were
lean times for South Korea, and one can assume for
North Korea as well. The government there has never liked
information about their goings on, you know, getting out. So
(23:43):
this is also kind of where our timeline splits along
that North South divide and the rest of this is
focusing on South Korea, though of course refugees from the
North would have brought their food traditions with them, so right, Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It did take a few decades for the beef industry
to bounce back from all of this. Reviews written about
restaurants serving bulgogi credit these restaurants with bringing this dish
to the masses in the nineteen sixties. I also found
a really interesting article about the shift of like not
fine dining, like dining with a family versus a huge
(24:20):
git together that was happening during this time that bulgogi
was also part of. Around the same time beef broth,
bulgogi first debuted on a large scale.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, that was also happening in restaurants, where right, it
was considered more practical as a small family meal than
as a large gathering kind of meal. But bulgogi was
also being made in middle class homes, as is evidenced
by recipes and women's magazines from the time.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
The first bulgogi girl was patented in nineteen sixty two,
and this is around the time reports of bolgogi's popularity
in places like Thailand started popping up. Though the term
seemed to largely refer to roasted meat a lot of
the times.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, to hard to suss out again like the face thing,
like like how big of a lumper meat is that?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I'm not sure right.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
The dish was, of course adapted to local tastes and
supplies wherever it developed and spread. Just for one example,
down in the southeast city of Ulsan, I hope I'm
not butchering that which had iron and salt and access
to local cattle and charcoal, this specific style of almost
(25:29):
like ground beef style crispy.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Grilled bulgogie developed.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It's called on Yang bulgogi uh and yeah, like like
first is a side dish for working class folks out
in the country town where it gets its name from,
and then later is like a tourist known local delicacy.
But yeah, other variations would have used seafood like squid
or vegetables like eggplant.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Well. As Korean immigrants arrived in the US after the
Green they bought bulgolgi with them, And yeah, it became
one of the most well known Korean dishes in the
country for non Koreans, and soon after the Sole Olympics
in nineteen eighty eight, the popularity of bulgogi started to
decline in South Korea specifically, Yeah yeah, yes. In South
(26:19):
Korea specifically, you served by the non marinated, non season
sirloin and golpi. According to one article from the time,
this was due to the lack of trust people had
in restaurants. Another sited a new preference to taste the
un seasoned freshness of ingredients. The price of cuts typically
(26:40):
used for bulgogi dropped by over twenty percent because of
all this, and to combat this, the Korean Council of
Beef Consumption Promotion launched the Let's Eat Volgogi campaign in
two thousand and four. Yes, which kind of related. The
bulgogi burger debuted on the menus of fast food chains
(27:02):
in Korea in nineteen ninety two and was available until
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I think there's still one on McDonald's South Korean menu.
It's like a ground pork patty topped with sweet bl
googie sauce, lettuce.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And mayo right in listeners, Yeah, yeah, I've heard it's delicious.
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
The aforementioned Korean wave got started in like the nineteen
nineties and early two thousands as a whole bunch of
legal factors, such as travel from South Korea and censorship
of media there began opening.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Up in twenty ten while gogi was part of the
menu offered to Korean astronauts. And in twenty fourteen in
the US we started seeing these generic bulgogi advertisements.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Like featuring a Korean American outfielder for the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Okay, yes, And they started popping up here as part
of an ad campaign around Korean culture, and it confused
many people, including MPR employee Luise Clemens, who tried to
get to the bottom of the ads and wrote, and
what was with the promotion of a national dish rather
than a brand? It's hard to imagine an equivalent ad.
(28:13):
It's like justin Timberlake appearing in a British newspaper ad
touting the great taste of Hamburgers. Not Burger King or
McDonald's or Wendy's, Nope, just Hamburgers. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
It turned out to be part of of a too
be fair convoluted chain of soft power marketing attempts.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I feel like Clemens was being kind of purposefully obtuse
about that for humor, but also objectively like the ad
is funny in a way that does not immediately reveal
whether the advertisers are like in on the joke. Yeah,
but no, I mean, I mean soft power is absolutely
(28:56):
a very large part of the spread of dishes like this,
And we've talked about that countless times. We talked about
it in fondo for a lot of different different countries.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, m hm.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And on a slightly more general note, and twenty eighteen,
I just found this interesting. South Korea became the biggest
importer of beef produced in the state of Colorado, buying
up almost a third of the state's billion dollar beef exports,
beating out Japan and Canada, which, yeah, just points to
(29:27):
the general popularity of dishes like Bulgo Gate on the
Korean food market.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Well, hi, I tell you, the craving is strong. First stand,
really strong, now really strong. So good.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I don't I don't eat a lot of meat. I
don't usually crave it, but holy heck, looking looking at
photos of this for the past couple of days, I
was just like, oh no, oh, no.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Dang, it added to our huge feast. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, but yeah, you know, Annie and I have relatively
little little experience with this, so if anyone has stories, history,
anything that we missed, any personal memories you want to
add in there. We would love to know about them.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yes, yes we would. But we do have some listener
mail already prepared for you.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh we do, and we're going to get into that
as soon as we get back from one more quick
break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
We're back, Thank you, sponsor, yes, thank you, And we're
back with snow the charring of the face or the
meat either way or both both? Ay no, no, dear.
(31:09):
So we have a message from Eric who wrote about
a couple things loved the bree revisit always fun to
go back the old one ounce serving size. That is
amazing self control for someone who can pull that off.
Trying to do a cheese royalty family tree will definitely
lead to a heated cheese debate. And then who is
(31:31):
going to start a coup to overthrow the king? I
say we take over the month of March and turn
it into Feastuary. Okay for the many episodes, maybe Savor
tapas are Savor small bites. Anyway, I do agree. I
do agree with Lauren on Bill Ferrell. I don't dislike him,
(31:52):
but his humor is not really my style. I also
agree that elf on the shelf is really pretty creepy.
That maple syrup pasta seems like it could work if
you do a light touch with the maple syrup and
maybe had some chopped bacon or panzetta panchetta, panzetta, panchetta panchetta.
(32:14):
I can't get anything right. If you had to do candy,
maybe a few of those small cinnamon candies like red
hots or whatever it is people decorate some sugar cookies with.
I think the salt of bacon or pinchetta would work better,
though I also like the idea of upset and gellog
with junkie cereals. The Doritos flavored Li Coeur would depends
(32:38):
on how you feel about Doritos. They are one of
those chips that I really only want if I get
a graping for them. And the fun of holiday meals.
I'm still trying to convince people that we can just
do pizza and beer. We did buy a pre cooked
prime rip for Christmas this year that just needed to
be warmed up, but I still put together a bunch
(32:59):
of sides roasted carrots with pomegranate molasses, mushroom gravy, mushy peas,
caramelized onion, mushroom and goat cheese on puff pastry and
grotten potatoes with gouda mozzarella, goat cheese, cheddar, and parmesano regiano.
Oh my god, Oh that sounds so good. Yeah wow,
(33:19):
I mean I love how you're kind of like, oh,
we just did this this year. Yeah, like pizza or whatever,
but this simple.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Thing with all of those delicious Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm
with you.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I do like doing the fancy meal, but because we
have so many in a quick succession, it's just like, oh,
come on, yeah, give it a rest sometimes. Yeah, let's
just order in do something easy. Yeah, you don't have
to do this.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah we could do Yeah, we could save it for
I don't know, but you don't want to warm up
your whole kitchen like that when it's when it's hot out.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
So it's true. For a while, I tried to convince
my family that we should do essentially, we should move
the Thanksgiving to June so then they would be equally
spread out. And we tried it like two years, and
I think it was a hit, but we stopped doing it. Yeah. Yeah,
it's hard, you know. Yes. Also, so most of these
(34:22):
notes are from the short we did about holiday advertising.
I did forget to mention in this maple pasta that
is from Elf the movie. Apparently pop tarts are involved.
I did not mention that in the episode, but there
are pop tarts also. Okay, Yeah, it's a lot, I
(34:47):
mean it is. It's an endeavor. I do think the
salt would help. I think if you went light, yeah,
you're able syrup and had something to counteract to balance it.
Sure yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And I like the idea of spice in there too,
you know, sure yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
If anyone's had it, you've got to let us know.
You've got to let us know. Okay. Kelly wrote is
it too late to still.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Wish you a happy New Year? I have had email
saver languishing at the bottom of my to do list
for literally more than a year now. Twenty twenty three
was relentless, and I've accumulated a couple of topics. Apologies
for lumping them all together, but at least I'm finally
sending the message first. A little over a year ago,
some of your other wonderful listeners wrote in and did,
in fact help solve my cookie mystery. Pariser wafers are
(35:51):
definitely the ones I remember from childhood, sometimes called cream wafers. Yes,
so a huge and hugely belated thank you to all
of them. A few weeks ago, when you did the
Pizzelle episode, it reminded me of a different Norwegian cookie
that we've always had around the holidaysk kak.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I think they are similar to pizzelee and made with
the same kind of iron, except that as soon as
you take it off the iron, you wrap it around
a cone shaped mold, similar to a waffle cone or
a canoli shell. Also, I think they're usually flavored with
vanilla or almond. I'm not sure if annis or other
flavors are used for krun kake. Finally, I also wanted
to mention that your episode on Chinese five spice reminded
(36:32):
me that Indian cooking also uses a different five spice
blend called and I looked this up. I couldn't find
it Punch for punch for on Sure, it's often used
in Dahl and the name literally means five spices. It's
also connected to the English word punch, meaning the drink,
which originated in India during the years of the British
Empire and was typically made with five ingredients water, sugar, alcohol,
(36:55):
lemon or lime, juice, and spices.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
M I loved all. Yeah, that's interesting. We could definitely
do an episode on that. And I feel like, again,
we could have a mini series on cookies. At this point,
we're getting so many cookie information that's excellent.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well we'll have to, We'll have to.
I feel like, yeah, there could be be a little
little like many many episodes about some of those, because right,
it's just like what kind of cookie are you making today?
And then some of them are very long episodes because
you have whole histories of cookie irons. And yeah, yeah,
you know, we could have like a cookie table sometimes
(37:40):
long episode about a brand that made this whole cookie
a thing, or a short episode.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Could be anything. It could be anything. Also, I do
love that the listeners, the good listeners, helped you solve
your mystery. Yes, I remember reading that. Yeah, I remember
people writing in this is the power of the audience.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Go yes, yes, yes, I'm glad that the message made
its way through.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah. Yes, that's so great. I love it so much. Yes, Well,
thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
our emails Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
But we're also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts my Heart Radio, you can visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to save your prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm more in Vogelbaum, and today we have an
episode for you about Bulgogie.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, yes, fun with pronunciations for sure, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes, I don't know Korean, as it turns out, and
so that is going to be a theme throughout this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yes, it will be, It will be. Was there any
particular reason this was on your mind? Lord? Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
You know, I think I've been wanting to do Beban
Bop for a while, but it's a little bit trickier
to nail down. This seemed as I was getting into
it famous last words, like it was going to be
relatively straightforward. I love I love Korean food. Here in Atlanta,
We're lucky to have a number of amazing Korean restaurants.
(00:58):
And yeah, the cravings in this one, Yes, the cravings, Yes,
very much.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I remember the first time I had bolgolgy, and it's
been bolin is to thank for this our colleague and
friend D and D compatriot because I've said a million times,
but I came from a small town. There was no
book golgy to be had there. And when I came
to Atlanta, I got introduced to all these things, but
(01:32):
I remember it was Ben Bolin. I think you kind
of mentioned it in passing and I was like, oh,
what is that? I want that? And I loved it.
And at the time you could get it at Trader
Joe's not a sponsor, and I would get it there
and cook it for my family. But my older brother
there was something in there that, like his stomach didn't
(01:53):
sit well with making. But it was a very beautiful
period of mind when I discovered bulgogi.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I don't think I had had any
before before I was in Atlanta because right, yeah, I
also did not have access to that cuisine when I
was growing up.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And it was.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Actually it was actually a coworker at like the job
I had before.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
How stuff works.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So a full fifteen ish years ago, I had a
co worker from South Korea who was like, oh, man,
we have to go to this restaurant. But he was yeah,
in Boston at the time, so but yeah, but then
I came back here and I was like, oh, this
is everywhere cool.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, not hard to find. We're very lucky, as
you said, Yes, you can see our episodes we've done
on things like kim chi for more context and GoChi jang. Yes,
but I guess that brings us to our question, Sure,
bull golgi, what is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, googie is a type of dish made of very thin,
bite sized slices of meat, usually beef, marinated in a savory, sweet,
pungent salty sauce made from soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger,
and sesame oil, among other seasonings. The meat is then
usually grilled until tender, with a little crisp and char
at the edges, maybe a tiny bit saucy from the marinade.
(03:24):
It's often served family style or even cooked on a
mini grill like at the table, with a range of
accompaniments including steamed white rice, large leaf lettuce, various spicy
pickled vegetables, and various sauces for dipping in or drizzling.
You like make yourself little lettuce wraps with a little
bit of everything you want in each bite. It can
also be served over a bowl of rice, maybe made saucier,
(03:46):
or you can cook the marinated beef into a soup.
You can use other proteins or add mixins to the
marinade like sliced onion or mushrooms. It is so satisfying,
Like you eat beef. This is just a perfect preparation
of it, you know, like meltingly tender, chewy and with
fatty richness tempered by those sweet, funky, tart spicy flavors.
(04:12):
You get some crunch from the lettuce and the pickles,
some soft fluff from the rice. It's almost like it's
like meat noodles. It's like it's like if perfect stir
fried flat noodles were made of the best barbecue you've
had in your life.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It's just a perfect comfort food.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It's like it's like when the heat picks on and
you put yourself just right in front of the radiator
or like on top of the heat vent and just
instant full body warmth.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Well, now you've made the cravings worse anytime. It's a skilled.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I was so mad the entire time I was doing
this reading, Like I was like, don't you cannot order.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Und right now? Okay?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Anyway, okay, So, so bulgogi is a type of a
quick cooking barbecue. You're you're looking to get your main
ingredient to a place where it'll cook through in just
a couple of minutes and be nice and tender and
in bite sized pieces. Beef is the most traditional, you know,
like a something already tender with nice marbling is preferred
(05:30):
like a like a cut like a ribbi or sirloin,
and then cut as thin as possible against the grain.
Some recipes will recommend freezing a steak for a little
bit before cutting it to help. Some recommend using an
electric meat slicer to get it really thin. Tougher cuts
of beef can be marinated for longer, though chicken is
also common, as is often spicier marinated pork. I've seen
(05:52):
recipes for vegetarian versions too, using some kind of vegetarian
protein substitute or sliced mushrooms and peppers and onions, something
like that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Then the marinade. Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
The ingredients can vary by personal taste or regional or
family recipe, but commonly you we'll start with soy sauce
for salt and savory flavors as well, some kind of bright,
clean tasting rice wine, maybe some brown sugar to help
balance the saltiness, sesame oil, grated garlic and ginger, and
a little bit of black pepper. You might also add
(06:24):
things like gucci jung, which is a spicy from a
did chili pepper sauce, or maybe the juice or puree
of things like Asian pear or kiwi or sesame seeds
for extra naughty punch. Yeah, sometimes you'll blend the sauce
into a smooth liquid. Sometimes you won't. End then marinad
science all right, as we've as we've talked about before
(06:48):
in our episodes about various meat dishes turkey, pastrami, saviche,
fried chicken, others. Sure, I don't know. There are a
number of ways to muck around with protein molecules in
your food, either before or instead of heating them up
in order to make your finished product what you want
(07:10):
it to be. Acids and alcohols will make protein fibers
kind of clamp up. Salt and some enzymes found in
various fruits and vegetables like Asian pears and kiwis and
the recently discussed papaya will make those fibers relax. In
the case of bulgogie, you're exposing such thin and cross
(07:33):
grain slices of meat to the marinade so that the
proteins in them are in much more in direct contact
with those things than they would be if you were
marinating like a whole steak or like a chicken thigh
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
That's why a lot of recipes call for only marinating
your protein for a short period of time, like half
an hour. More time might start to affect the texture
of the meat. But depending on what protein you're using,
or you know your personal taste, you might want to
affect the texture of meat. And I can't tell you
what to do. In the proportions that that things go
into Bulgogi marinade, the effect is going to be overall
(08:07):
relaxing on the proteins due to salt and possibly that
fruit enzyme content. I think any alcohol in there is
really just for its own flavor and or to like
help with sauce caramelization. If anyone wants to do a
scientific study on this, I welcome you to.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I dare you.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
The Internet is really full of really confusing, conflicting information
about marinades, and I couldn't really find anything about you know,
what happens in a cross section of beef like this.
So here we are, yeah, okay, cooking the thing. Yeah,
(08:48):
so all right, you add your thin sliced whatever to
your marinade and let it soak. You might also add
sliced onion or mushroom or other vegetables. At this point,
after whatever amount of time you deem appropriate, you remove
the stuff from the sauce and cook it quickly on
a grill preferably heated by charcoal to get a little
bit of that flavor in there. Yeah, and then it
can be served simply over rice, usually at that point
(09:10):
with a couple of vegetable side dishes, or alongside rice,
often with leaf lettuce to make handheld wraps, and then
with a kimchi or other fermented vegetables and sauces like
some jong, which is a type of a spicy, funky
condiment made with fermented soybean paste and gochu jong and
other stuff that's often served or pretty much always served
(09:31):
with lettuce wraps. A note here that I've been saying lettuce,
but the leaf wrap does not have to be lettuce
at Any leafy green that's good, either fresh or steamed
or blanched, could be used, depending on what's local and
deemed tasty. For this traditional approach, either in restaurants or
at home, you might have a small grill either built
(09:51):
into the table or like portable and brought to the table,
and each diner might grill or pluck off their own
pieces as they go as they're eating. The grill top
and be graded or like a dome that allows cooking
liquid to collect in a ring around the bottom. Though
from what I understand, this table side stick is considered
sort of old fashioned and a little kitchy by South
(10:11):
Koreans these days. I get the idea like sort of
in the way that we perceive fondue and is often
reserved for special occasions. Yes, Korea is where this dish
is from. But yeah, yeah, you can do whatever else
you want with marinated stuff. You know, you can cook
(10:32):
it in a stove top pan if that's what you've got.
You can leave the marinade in to make a nice sauce.
You can add some nice glass type noodles to make
a noodles sort of stir fry. You can toss your
cooked stuff in a sandwich bun, well, googi, philly, I
don't know. Or instead of a stovetop or grill top,
you can add the raw pieces to a hot pot
(10:53):
or or otherwise to some kind of hot broth for
a soup situation, and depending on the region of Korea
you're in, this might be the more traditional preparation.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
You can.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, so this is both a home and a restaurant product.
You can also buy bottled bulgogie sauce. Markets catering to
Koreans all over the world sell pre sliced and marinated
bulgogi meat that's like ready to cook. You can also
find ready to heat bulgogi frozener refrigerated.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It's out there, it is, it is indeed.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Oh well, what about the nutrition, Oh, it depends. You know,
usually lots of protein can be heavy on the fats
and salts, depending It'll definitely help fill you up, you know,
Drink water, eat, eat a vegetable, get down, let us
yeah or whatever, leafy green whatever. Yeah, well, we do
(11:44):
have some numbers.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
For you, we do.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Okay, So, I did a lot of reading for this one, y'all,
and I read a lot of numbers, but like really
dynamic ones, we're a little bit hard to isolate around
this dish specifically, but okay is a very popular food
in South Korea and also a very popular Korean dish
in foreign cultures. You know, people people like barbecue So
(12:11):
for example, in nineteen ninety six, the South Korean Ministry
of Culture and Sports named bulgogi one of the top
ten symbols of Korea. As of twenty twenty three, Jaiju AYR,
which is a budget airliner out of South Korea, bulgogi
over rice had been the most popular in flight meal
(12:32):
for five years running, comprising a full quarter of in
flight food sales YEA. And in a study out of
South Korea nineteen ninety five, of eleven Korean dishes sampled
by American study participants, the participants rated bulgogi the tastiest. Also,
(12:54):
between nineteen eighty and two thousand and five, the New
York Times mentioned bulgog forty seven times. The only Korean
foods mentioned more often during that period were kim chi
and scallion pancakes. Oh yeah, yeah, also delicious. But all
of that was Those two American examples, anyway, were before
(13:19):
the really big surge in Korean culture internationally referred to
as the Korean Wave or sometimes by the Chinese term
how you, and that started in the early two thousands. So,
just for example, like a market study found that American
interest in Korean cuisine spiked almost ninety percent during twenty
(13:40):
twenty one alone, just about doubled that year. A different
survey from the end of twenty twenty two found that
in twenty six countries around the world, about three quarters
of respondents said the Korean cuisine is either very or
moderately popular where they live, and a survey of wave
(14:00):
trends overall found that as of twenty twenty three, Korean
food was the most popular cultural item outside of the Peninsula,
capturing some forty nine percent of the public's interest. That
was followed by music and movies. Wow, it's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah,
it's I I like food, so I can't really argue,
(14:23):
but you.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Know, yeah, oh wow. Well, if you want to learn
more about this. Incidentally, we did talk about this K
wave and K pop and K dramas over on Spin
d oh cool. Stefan never told you, so you wanted
to learn more about that. Yeah, it's pretty big deal.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, a little bit big deal, A little bit, just
a little bit of a thing, huh.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, uh huh. Well, we do have a history for you.
We've got a history.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We heckn do, and we are going to get into
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay,
So this one was quite a history to wrangle. Yes, yep,
as mentioned pronunciation fun times for us, but historians believe
that Bulgogi's origins go all the way back to the
evolution of a meat preparation similar to Kabob's first US
(15:31):
in Korea, sometime between thirty seven BCE UH to six
six eight six hundred and sixty eight CE. I don't
know why I mixed up my numbers like that sometimes,
but you know what I.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Mean, it's it's fun. Saying numbers out loud is really wild.
Just try it if y'all aren't used to reading a
number out loud. It's it's really wacky.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
We promised.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's not just us, but okay, that that time span
is because this was in the ancient kingdom of Golguryu,
which ruled during that period in the north central part
of the Korean Peninsula and then up further north into
what's now like China Russia.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Right, and this preparation was called mechchuk and consisted of
pre marinated, skewerd roasted meat. Over time, the meat was
marinated and soaked in water perhaps three times according to
some things I read, and it usually came into a
brothy dish. So that was a long time ago, big
(16:33):
time skip. By the twentieth century, this dish evolved again
into a very thinly sliced, marinated, seasoned, and charboled meat
that was much loved by the well off, called neo biani.
And again I looked up. I even watched videos in
Korean and was trying to find where's the pronunciation. I'm
very sorry if I butchered it. I did not discover it.
(16:56):
We try, we try, we do try, but always write
in US. Oh yeah, yeah. The seasoning typically called for salt, pepper,
soy sauce, garlic, scallion, sesame oil, sugar, and pear juice,
which was yes, largely Asian pear from what I understand, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Asian pear also called the apple pear or sand pear,
among other common names. The botanical name is Pyris pyrifolia,
and they're those large, roundish, golden speckled pears that often
come individually wrapped in like the weird little like webbing
kind of stuff to keep them fresh. Yeah, they're crisp
like an apple and have this really nice, delicate, sweet
(17:33):
tart sort of flavor, adding it adding it to the
ever growing.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
List I love I love an Asian pear. Oh my goodness,
me too. Yeah, yeah, but okay. This is where a
series of complicated factors came into play to eventually arrive
at what we now know as bolgogi, which can refer
to both the brothy dish and the straight up grilled meat.
(17:58):
One of the big things about this was the increasing
widespread availability and commercialization of beef in Korea beginning in
the nineteen twenties and thirties. Previously, cows were too limited
and important to not use for their labor in the region.
As the population of cattle grew, though, naturally, beef ended
up in more dishes and it was accessible for more folks,
(18:21):
especially in bigger cities where early records show people were
raising beef specifically for their meat. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
The twenties and thirties were during Japan's colonization of Korea,
which happened from nineteen ten through the end of World
War Two, and due to a number of factors around
industrialization and harsh Japanese rule, a lot of people during
this time were moving from rural to urban areas, and
so food ways were changing.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Right, And at the same time, bulgogi was becoming cemented
in dining out culture and thus commercialized as well. Bulgogi
continued to evolve pretty much splitting along those to basic
pass the one with the broth and the roasted dish.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, because beef was becoming more available, like production of
a lot of stuff was on the rise, but meat
would have still been expensive for the average person, And
at this time the roasted type of bulgogie was probably
considered like a side dish instead of a maine And
it's similarly like a soup is a really tasty way
to stretch a limited amount of meat?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yes, yes, it is. The rise of iron production and
the long standing popularity of certain broths and stews is
also believed to have had a key in popularizing bulgogi.
The term bulgogi first appeared in a written document in
nineteen twenty two, so the context kind of suggests that
it had been used to refer to any type of
(19:47):
roasted meat, like, not just the thinly sliced we would
think of.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, it's a little bit difficult to tell from the
piece in question because Okay, this wasn't a short story
that appeared like in a literary magazine in nineteen twenty two.
And I love this reference. In the story, the narrator
refers to his romantic rivals expression like facial expression as
(20:12):
they're entering this sort of polite but tense public standoff,
and the narrator says, this is in translation. Perhaps obviously
his face was like a lump of bulgogie being cooked
over brightly burning charcoal.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's great, right, because it's like you can see it.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, yes, but right, so it's hard to tell exactly
what type of cut of meat is being referred to
by that. It's a sick burn, is what we can say.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Uh. The Memoir of the first Mayor of Soul Sokria
mentions bulgogi and meat broth in reference to a dish
he had in nineteen twenty six while visiting Korean relatives
in Hawaii. It was written later, though, So that's one
of those things where it's.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Like, yeah, because he wrote it in the nineteen eighties,
the memoir, and so like rite what it was and
what his project is.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, exactly. A nineteen twenty seven text out of Japan
suggests that bulgogi was sold commercially and widely available in
Korean restaurants.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, a bulgogi was adapted into Japanese cuisine under the
name yakimiku. So if you've ever had that in a
Japanese restaurant, that's bulgogi basically.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah uh, and I love this fact. A nineteen thirty
five article detailed an incident in which bolgogi was banned
in a famous Pyongyang amusement park because it was believed
that the smoke from cooking bolgogi in the open air
was drying out in the nearby trees. So what we
can take from this at least is that the grilled
(21:57):
or roasted version was the specialty of the serial, or
at least it was pretty it was well known. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
There are a few other documents other than this, like
park band Yeah that.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Plays the grilled version in that city. Right. Also, bulgogi
was mentioned in the nineteen thirties pop song, which again
goes to show that it was well known at the time.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I love this one too, Okay. The singer of the
song A Lady is talking about this rude guy, possibly
a boyfriend. It's it's sort of like no scrubs like
the bulgogi version. And one of the things that the
that the lady says about this guy is that he
like he eats all of her side dishes, like he
eats the bulgogi and the rice cakes and gives her
(22:43):
only bean sprouts.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Oh no, yeah, get out of there. That's not acceptable,
not at all. I love this, okay.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
However, after World War Two, there were a lot of
serious supply shortages, especially of expensive things like beef. This
was during the Division of Korea very basically after the
Second World War ended. The Allies kicked to Japan out
and split the peninsula into the USSR run zone in
the north and the United States run zone in the south,
(23:20):
which was supposed to be temporary but led to the
divide between North and South Korea that continues to this
day and also more immediately directly to the Korean War
in the early nineteen fifties. So all of these were
lean times for South Korea, and one can assume for
North Korea as well. The government there has never liked
information about their goings on, you know, getting out. So
(23:43):
this is also kind of where our timeline splits along
that North South divide and the rest of this is
focusing on South Korea, though of course refugees from the
North would have brought their food traditions with them, so right, Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It did take a few decades for the beef industry
to bounce back from all of this. Reviews written about
restaurants serving bulgogi credit these restaurants with bringing this dish
to the masses in the nineteen sixties. I also found
a really interesting article about the shift of like not
fine dining, like dining with a family versus a huge
(24:20):
git together that was happening during this time that bulgogi
was also part of. Around the same time beef broth,
bulgogi first debuted on a large scale.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, that was also happening in restaurants, where right, it
was considered more practical as a small family meal than
as a large gathering kind of meal. But bulgogi was
also being made in middle class homes, as is evidenced
by recipes and women's magazines from the time.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
The first bulgogi girl was patented in nineteen sixty two,
and this is around the time reports of bolgogi's popularity
in places like Thailand started popping up. Though the term
seemed to largely refer to roasted meat a lot of
the times.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, to hard to suss out again like the face thing,
like like how big of a lumper meat is that?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I'm not sure right.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
The dish was, of course adapted to local tastes and
supplies wherever it developed and spread. Just for one example,
down in the southeast city of Ulsan, I hope I'm
not butchering that which had iron and salt and access
to local cattle and charcoal, this specific style of almost
(25:29):
like ground beef style crispy.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Grilled bulgogie developed.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It's called on Yang bulgogi uh and yeah, like like
first is a side dish for working class folks out
in the country town where it gets its name from,
and then later is like a tourist known local delicacy.
But yeah, other variations would have used seafood like squid
or vegetables like eggplant.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Well. As Korean immigrants arrived in the US after the
Green they bought bulgolgi with them, And yeah, it became
one of the most well known Korean dishes in the
country for non Koreans, and soon after the Sole Olympics
in nineteen eighty eight, the popularity of bulgogi started to
decline in South Korea specifically, Yeah yeah, yes. In South
(26:19):
Korea specifically, you served by the non marinated, non season
sirloin and golpi. According to one article from the time,
this was due to the lack of trust people had
in restaurants. Another sited a new preference to taste the
un seasoned freshness of ingredients. The price of cuts typically
(26:40):
used for bulgogi dropped by over twenty percent because of
all this, and to combat this, the Korean Council of
Beef Consumption Promotion launched the Let's Eat Volgogi campaign in
two thousand and four. Yes, which kind of related. The
bulgogi burger debuted on the menus of fast food chains
(27:02):
in Korea in nineteen ninety two and was available until
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I think there's still one on McDonald's South Korean menu.
It's like a ground pork patty topped with sweet bl
googie sauce, lettuce.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And mayo right in listeners, Yeah, yeah, I've heard it's delicious.
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
The aforementioned Korean wave got started in like the nineteen
nineties and early two thousands as a whole bunch of
legal factors, such as travel from South Korea and censorship
of media there began opening.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Up in twenty ten while gogi was part of the
menu offered to Korean astronauts. And in twenty fourteen in
the US we started seeing these generic bulgogi advertisements.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Like featuring a Korean American outfielder for the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Okay, yes, And they started popping up here as part
of an ad campaign around Korean culture, and it confused
many people, including MPR employee Luise Clemens, who tried to
get to the bottom of the ads and wrote, and
what was with the promotion of a national dish rather
than a brand? It's hard to imagine an equivalent ad.
(28:13):
It's like justin Timberlake appearing in a British newspaper ad
touting the great taste of Hamburgers. Not Burger King or
McDonald's or Wendy's, Nope, just Hamburgers. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
It turned out to be part of of a too
be fair convoluted chain of soft power marketing attempts.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I feel like Clemens was being kind of purposefully obtuse
about that for humor, but also objectively like the ad
is funny in a way that does not immediately reveal
whether the advertisers are like in on the joke. Yeah,
but no, I mean, I mean soft power is absolutely
(28:56):
a very large part of the spread of dishes like this,
And we've talked about that countless times. We talked about
it in fondo for a lot of different different countries.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, m hm.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
And on a slightly more general note, and twenty eighteen,
I just found this interesting. South Korea became the biggest
importer of beef produced in the state of Colorado, buying
up almost a third of the state's billion dollar beef exports,
beating out Japan and Canada, which, yeah, just points to
(29:27):
the general popularity of dishes like Bulgo Gate on the
Korean food market.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Well, hi, I tell you, the craving is strong. First stand,
really strong, now really strong. So good.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I don't I don't eat a lot of meat. I
don't usually crave it, but holy heck, looking looking at
photos of this for the past couple of days, I
was just like, oh no, oh, no.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Dang, it added to our huge feast. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, but yeah, you know, Annie and I have relatively
little little experience with this, so if anyone has stories, history,
anything that we missed, any personal memories you want to
add in there. We would love to know about them.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yes, yes we would. But we do have some listener
mail already prepared for you.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh we do, and we're going to get into that
as soon as we get back from one more quick
break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
We're back, Thank you, sponsor, yes, thank you, And we're
back with snow the charring of the face or the
meat either way or both both? Ay no, no, dear.
(31:09):
So we have a message from Eric who wrote about
a couple things loved the bree revisit always fun to
go back the old one ounce serving size. That is
amazing self control for someone who can pull that off.
Trying to do a cheese royalty family tree will definitely
lead to a heated cheese debate. And then who is
(31:31):
going to start a coup to overthrow the king? I
say we take over the month of March and turn
it into Feastuary. Okay for the many episodes, maybe Savor
tapas are Savor small bites. Anyway, I do agree. I
do agree with Lauren on Bill Ferrell. I don't dislike him,
(31:52):
but his humor is not really my style. I also
agree that elf on the shelf is really pretty creepy.
That maple syrup pasta seems like it could work if
you do a light touch with the maple syrup and
maybe had some chopped bacon or panzetta panchetta, panzetta, panchetta panchetta.
(32:14):
I can't get anything right. If you had to do candy,
maybe a few of those small cinnamon candies like red
hots or whatever it is people decorate some sugar cookies with.
I think the salt of bacon or pinchetta would work better,
though I also like the idea of upset and gellog
with junkie cereals. The Doritos flavored Li Coeur would depends
(32:38):
on how you feel about Doritos. They are one of
those chips that I really only want if I get
a graping for them. And the fun of holiday meals.
I'm still trying to convince people that we can just
do pizza and beer. We did buy a pre cooked
prime rip for Christmas this year that just needed to
be warmed up, but I still put together a bunch
(32:59):
of sides roasted carrots with pomegranate molasses, mushroom gravy, mushy peas,
caramelized onion, mushroom and goat cheese on puff pastry and
grotten potatoes with gouda mozzarella, goat cheese, cheddar, and parmesano regiano.
Oh my god, Oh that sounds so good. Yeah wow,
(33:19):
I mean I love how you're kind of like, oh,
we just did this this year. Yeah, like pizza or whatever,
but this simple.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Thing with all of those delicious Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm
with you.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I do like doing the fancy meal, but because we
have so many in a quick succession, it's just like, oh,
come on, yeah, give it a rest sometimes. Yeah, let's
just order in do something easy. Yeah, you don't have
to do this.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah we could do Yeah, we could save it for
I don't know, but you don't want to warm up
your whole kitchen like that when it's when it's hot out.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
So it's true. For a while, I tried to convince
my family that we should do essentially, we should move
the Thanksgiving to June so then they would be equally
spread out. And we tried it like two years, and
I think it was a hit, but we stopped doing it. Yeah. Yeah,
it's hard, you know. Yes. Also, so most of these
(34:22):
notes are from the short we did about holiday advertising.
I did forget to mention in this maple pasta that
is from Elf the movie. Apparently pop tarts are involved.
I did not mention that in the episode, but there
are pop tarts also. Okay, Yeah, it's a lot, I
(34:47):
mean it is. It's an endeavor. I do think the
salt would help. I think if you went light, yeah,
you're able syrup and had something to counteract to balance it.
Sure yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And I like the idea of spice in there too,
you know, sure yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
If anyone's had it, you've got to let us know.
You've got to let us know. Okay. Kelly wrote is
it too late to still.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Wish you a happy New Year? I have had email
saver languishing at the bottom of my to do list
for literally more than a year now. Twenty twenty three
was relentless, and I've accumulated a couple of topics. Apologies
for lumping them all together, but at least I'm finally
sending the message first. A little over a year ago,
some of your other wonderful listeners wrote in and did,
in fact help solve my cookie mystery. Pariser wafers are
(35:51):
definitely the ones I remember from childhood, sometimes called cream wafers. Yes,
so a huge and hugely belated thank you to all
of them. A few weeks ago, when you did the
Pizzelle episode, it reminded me of a different Norwegian cookie
that we've always had around the holidaysk kak.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I think they are similar to pizzelee and made with
the same kind of iron, except that as soon as
you take it off the iron, you wrap it around
a cone shaped mold, similar to a waffle cone or
a canoli shell. Also, I think they're usually flavored with
vanilla or almond. I'm not sure if annis or other
flavors are used for krun kake. Finally, I also wanted
to mention that your episode on Chinese five spice reminded
(36:32):
me that Indian cooking also uses a different five spice
blend called and I looked this up. I couldn't find
it Punch for punch for on Sure, it's often used
in Dahl and the name literally means five spices. It's
also connected to the English word punch, meaning the drink,
which originated in India during the years of the British
Empire and was typically made with five ingredients water, sugar, alcohol,
(36:55):
lemon or lime, juice, and spices.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
M I loved all. Yeah, that's interesting. We could definitely
do an episode on that. And I feel like, again,
we could have a mini series on cookies. At this point,
we're getting so many cookie information that's excellent.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well we'll have to, We'll have to.
I feel like, yeah, there could be be a little
little like many many episodes about some of those, because right,
it's just like what kind of cookie are you making today?
And then some of them are very long episodes because
you have whole histories of cookie irons. And yeah, yeah,
you know, we could have like a cookie table sometimes
(37:40):
long episode about a brand that made this whole cookie
a thing, or a short episode.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Could be anything. It could be anything. Also, I do
love that the listeners, the good listeners, helped you solve
your mystery. Yes, I remember reading that. Yeah, I remember
people writing in this is the power of the audience.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Go yes, yes, yes, I'm glad that the message made
its way through.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah. Yes, that's so great. I love it so much. Yes, Well,
thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
our emails Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
But we're also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts my Heart Radio, you can visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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