Dishes of the Kangwon Provincial Area
As the Kangwon provincial area is mountainous and located on the east coast, the local foods vary in kind according to their materials, such as fish, cereals, and pine nuts, honey and edible herbs collected from Mt Kumgang, a world-famous mountain in the country.
The characteristics of the local foods find expression in a significant proportion of those made of potato, maize, buckwheat, acorn and edible herbs, simple cooking methods and well-preserved natural flavour and aroma. Another special feature is that there are a large number of dishes of raw, dried and pickled fishes.
Representative foods of the province include glutinous millet rice, boiled rice mixed with shrimp, chongttok (a kind of buckwheat flour pasty), steamed rice cake with persimmon or maize, ground potato and glutinous rice balls, noodles, porridges mixed with maize or pumpkins, acorn jelly, trepang and jellyfish salad, seasoned raw octopus, pine-nut fried cake, pine-nut congee, honeyed white broad bellflower root, dishes of seasoned raw abalone, sea cucumber and cuttlefish, aralia shoots kimchi and so on.
Typical cereal foods include chongttok and half-moon-shaped potato cake of the Chunchon area and noodles. Noodles are served in ordinary kimchi juice and with simple garnishing of kimchi and radish chops as well as pungent spices, unlike Pyongyang cold noodles and Hamhung potato starch noodles with appetizing garnishing. Otherwise, wheat flour noodles are boiled in the adzuki water and seasoned with salt.
Kumgang, Kosong and other mountainous regions were noted for acorn jelly, and congee, fried cake, oil-and-honey pastry, fried glutinous rice cake made of pine nuts, specialty of Mt Kumgang.
Coastal regions of Thongchon and Kosong were famous for their special dishes made of octopus, hard-finned sandfish, cuttlefish and other fishes. Among them were fermented spicy dishes of hard-finned sandfish and Pollack roes and jerked flesh, jellyfish and sea cucumber salad, and dishes of dried Pollack, dried squid, salmon, cod, octopus and mackerel.
To prepare jellyfish and sea cucumber salad, jellyfishes are cut in slices, sea cucumber scalded and cut in slices, and they are seasoned with vinegared peppered bean paste.
In addition, pickled dishes of cuttlefish, Pollack guts and roes were also famous in the area, and in remote mountainous villages whitefish was much favoured in preparing soup and steamed dish.
The provincial people liked to eat dishes made from edible herbs, such as broad bellflower roots, bracken, anise, aralia shoots, Aster scaber and leopard plant.
The characteristics of the local foods find expression in a significant proportion of those made of potato, maize, buckwheat, acorn and edible herbs, simple cooking methods and well-preserved natural flavour and aroma. Another special feature is that there are a large number of dishes of raw, dried and pickled fishes.
Representative foods of the province include glutinous millet rice, boiled rice mixed with shrimp, chongttok (a kind of buckwheat flour pasty), steamed rice cake with persimmon or maize, ground potato and glutinous rice balls, noodles, porridges mixed with maize or pumpkins, acorn jelly, trepang and jellyfish salad, seasoned raw octopus, pine-nut fried cake, pine-nut congee, honeyed white broad bellflower root, dishes of seasoned raw abalone, sea cucumber and cuttlefish, aralia shoots kimchi and so on.
Typical cereal foods include chongttok and half-moon-shaped potato cake of the Chunchon area and noodles. Noodles are served in ordinary kimchi juice and with simple garnishing of kimchi and radish chops as well as pungent spices, unlike Pyongyang cold noodles and Hamhung potato starch noodles with appetizing garnishing. Otherwise, wheat flour noodles are boiled in the adzuki water and seasoned with salt.
Kumgang, Kosong and other mountainous regions were noted for acorn jelly, and congee, fried cake, oil-and-honey pastry, fried glutinous rice cake made of pine nuts, specialty of Mt Kumgang.
Coastal regions of Thongchon and Kosong were famous for their special dishes made of octopus, hard-finned sandfish, cuttlefish and other fishes. Among them were fermented spicy dishes of hard-finned sandfish and Pollack roes and jerked flesh, jellyfish and sea cucumber salad, and dishes of dried Pollack, dried squid, salmon, cod, octopus and mackerel.
To prepare jellyfish and sea cucumber salad, jellyfishes are cut in slices, sea cucumber scalded and cut in slices, and they are seasoned with vinegared peppered bean paste.
In addition, pickled dishes of cuttlefish, Pollack guts and roes were also famous in the area, and in remote mountainous villages whitefish was much favoured in preparing soup and steamed dish.
The provincial people liked to eat dishes made from edible herbs, such as broad bellflower roots, bracken, anise, aralia shoots, Aster scaber and leopard plant.