The Korean people mostly have rice and millet as their staple food. They like to eat cooked rice, rice cake and cool noodles. They eat dog meat, pork, sour and hot dishes, pickles and salted vegetables, but do not eat mutton, fat pork or prickly ash.
Their ordinary staple food is cooked rice. Jungle fowls, wild rabbits, wild herbs and yams on mountains, as well as kelp, silver fish and laver in the sea are all their favorites.
The most common dishes of Korean people are Bazhencai (eight ingredients dish) and Jiangmu'er (sauce vegetable soup). Bazhencai is a dish containing eight ingredients, i.e., mungbean sprout, soybean sprout, soft bean curd, dry bean curd, potato starch noodles, balloon flower, brake tender roots and mushroom, which are stewed, mixed, stirred and fried. Jiangmu'er is a dish containing Chinese cabbage, autumn cabbage, Daxing vegetable and edible seaweed, seasoned by sauce instead of salt. It is ready to serve after being soaped in boiled water. Every dinner must go with soup, and Jiangmu'er is the most common soup. Jiangmu'er is so indispensable that only those girls who can cook Jiangmu'er are regarded as good girls.
The Korean people are fond of dog meat. They think dog meat can clear away people's internal heat and disinfect their body. But they do not kill or eat dogs at weddings, funerals and festivals. They are also fond of beef, chicken and sea fish, but not mutton, duck, goose and greasy food.
Among the Korean food, cool noodles are famous throughout China, and pickles are well known all over the world.
The Korean people have the custom of drinking Year Wine. Year Wine is usually made before the Suishou Festival (beginning of New Year), which is similar to the Spring Festival of the Han people. Year Wine is made by using rice as the major ingredient and mixing it with several Chinese traditional medicine herbs, and is used for self-entertainment and entertaining guests during the Spring Festival (traditional Chinese Lunar New Year).
