Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Rice cakes..mmmmmm...

Songpyeon
Oh yes! We are one vacation and it is so nice! We are getting to sleep in and stay up late! Whoot!
Actually today we found a 1,000-3,000 won store a town over, ate at TGIF and made it home safe on the bus but nearly melted from tarential downpours! Wasn't exactly the most restful day but all the same we are on holiday!
We are on this lovely vacation because of Chuseok! Zachary has already filled you in on some Chuseok history.

Over 30 million people travel back to their home town to their parents house for this Thanksgiving-type holiday! 30 million! It's a crazy week in the Transportation department here in Korea!

We were thankful to have a little taste of Chuseok at school this week!
On Monday all the kindergarten kids came to school in their hanbok, or traditional dress! They looked wonderful! And they were all super excited, not just because they were dressed up and it was almost holiday, but also because we were making syeong pyeong! (forgive the spelling any Korean who happens to read this)

Perfect! What better way to get in the Chuseok mood than to make bean stuffed rice cakes!

It was...interesting.

These rice cakes are made out of a doughy, gooey, sticky rice stuff. (I don't know all the details of what's in it all I know is there is rice!) It looks like and feels like (after the stickiness) play dough. It even can be made in bright colors like play dough. Our class did plain old white and deep forest green.
To make it you pull a small portion of the lump and roll it into a ball. Then you make a little well in the middle.And add beans and a crushed peanut mixture (at least that's what it looks like and tastes like to me) and you stuff it inside. Then you fold it together in a half moon shape.
Then you steam it.
And wha lah, delicious rice cakes! 
Delicious is not the word I would use to describe it but the Korean's do fancy them.

It tastes like...playdough. Except not salty. And more gummy and with beans and peanut tasting stuff in the middle..and well just..awful.

The Kindergarten kids LOVED making them. And eating pieces off their hands.
Though I do not care to eat syeongpyeong it was still great to make them with the kids!
It was a fun day at LCI!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

So that's what they are! We found a box at the Oriental Mart in Killeen, they called it Korean Sweet Pancakes, and instead of steaming them, you smash them down and cook them like you would a pancake. Definitely interesting.


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