Samgyetang Day (part 1)

Eating  hot chicken soup on a hot summer day! That's the Korean way. I still find it hard to comprehend. There is a special day for eating such and it's not only once in the summer but three times. I can't remember if anybody has ever mentioned this to me in the almost eleven years of being married to a Korean (who now claims to be an alien Korean) until a Korean ajumma mentioned it recently.

I learned that there's Chobok, Jungbok and Malbok. All three are called Sam(3)bok. Chobok turned out to be last Friday (July 19), Jungbok will be on the 28 and Malbok on the 7th of August this year following the Lunar calendar.

It's supposed to be eaten on a hot day but last Friday started out as a rainy day. The day they didn't really start very well with me. Somebody pop in our language class three days before that and mentioned about an activity involving samgyetang, Friday, and the time. Since I'm free on that day and curious to know more about the food, I signed up. I'm not sure who else signed up but I'm so going.

Rainy Friday morning came, we all woke up very late and I had to rush to go downtown. There were a group waiting at the lobby but I just said hi and went up to where I thought I was supposed to be. When some staff saw me climbing up the stairs, they were all as bewildered as me as to where I was going. They tried to find out why I was there, and the keyword that I was able to blurt out was Samgyetang! The staff had to call the person in-charge for the activity to inform them that there is one person coming still. I was, then, sent down to the lobby to join the group.

That's what happens when one signs up without exactly knowing what it's about! :D I haven't exactly figured out where we were headed even when we were herded to the cars to take us. Someone mentioned that maybe we will head to the next town, which I was almost not very keen on coz of distance and my carsickness. I was almost tempted to back out until the road finally looked like a different one. So I tried to get settled and brace myself for a crazy morning.

We managed to pass by a university that I had been quite curious to see for a while, discovered that the fields covered with black are ginseng, and wind through inner small back roads to get into our destination. The place turned out to be special house for sick people.

We got in through the kitchen, discarded our umbrellas and bags and went inside the dining hall. We made puchimgue, served food, helped out picking out the meats, ate our own lunch, cleaned up the dining area. There more than a dozen of ladies so the job of feeding more than a hundred people and cleaning up afterwards wasn't that hard.

I've noticed that there were special holders for the used stainless cups, automatic hand sanitizer that sprays hand sanitizer and all I needed was to wipe off well with a tissue and my hand is free from the oily chicken.

I was also able to see a well-functioning kitchen that has automatic cleaner for trays, bowls, and utensils. The food waste are removed right after one finish the food and puts the trays on a corner in the dining hall. The system goes like this: discard any leftover food in your food tray before parking it on the cart. Those trays will be rinsed off one more time before they are put separately into their own dishwashing machines later on. Once done through the machines, they are put back into trays to cool from the sterilization. Everything that were used to cook gets cleaned up and even the sinks were scrubbed well.

The day got me a chance to peek through the heart of the kitchen, give back some service to my adopted place and challenge myself to eat a small cornish chicken. I was also able to meet new people who turns out to be living in the same area. Chobok may have gotten me slightly sick from the rain, sweltering hot and car ride but it was cool.

Next entry will be how my own try at cooking samgyetang turns out.