From Wikipedia: Tteokbokki, also known as Topokki, is a popular Korean snack food which is commonly purchased from street vendors or Pojangmacha. Originally it was called tteok jjim (떡찜), and was a broiled dish of sliced rice cake, meat, eggs, and seasoning. Tteok jjim an early variant of modern tteokbokki, was once a part of Korean royal court cuisine. This type of tteokbokki was made by broiling tteok, meat, vegetables, eggs, and seasonings in water, and then serving it topped with ginkgo nuts and walnuts. In its original form, tteokbokki, which was then known as gungjung tteokbokki, was a dish served in the royal court and regarded as a representative example of haute cuisine. The original tteokbokki was a stir-fried dish consisting of garaetteok (가래떡, cylinder-shaped tteok) combined with a variety of ingredients, such as beef, mung bean sprouts, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and onions, and seasoned with soy sauce
The festival (I call it a convention) was full of topokki vendors giving out samples of their chewy concoctions, while also selling bowls of their different varieties of the dish. Among them were; chili, teriyaki , BBQ, garlic, black bean, and mushroom cream.
I've grown to enjoy the dish, as it is a popular street food that grows on you.
(as well as lingers in your stomach like a brick!)
Besides the vendors, you could also see the winners who created new and unique topokki dishes. There was also a dance competition and an eating competition where the dishes increased in their levels of spiciness.
On the second floor of the AT Center they had a handful of vendors that were showing off business opportunities. You could sign up to purchase a franchise and run it yourself, visit the Research and Development station and see what kind of topokki they're working on. If you wanted, you could purchase cheese injected topokki, or grab up the last bag of chocolate sauce infused topokki!
While were were walking about, we started to get stares, as there were not many foreigners in attendance. SBS, one of the most famous TV networks in Korea tried to get me to do an interview. I refused (I don't like being on camera!) But my friend Domenick got the chance to be the star.
I made a quick video while they were taping, and recorded the interview off my TV that night.
You can also watch the full interview on SBS here.
I ended up giving a quick interview to a radio station as well (and wasn't too keen on that either!). Even the MC of the eating competition tried to get me to participate. Sometimes I just want to mix in with other Koreans so I don't stand out so much!
I also found this nicely done video on YouTube. Check it out if you want a better sense of the convention.
No comments:
Post a Comment