A New Menu

               

One of my Host Mom’s favorite phrases has been “New Menu.” Anytime we eat dinner she asks me if the meal consists of a new menu item or if I have had it before. Most of the time, my answer is the former, especially last week when snail soup and (yes, unfortunately) dog meat were the new menu items.

                One night I was getting ready for bed and my sisters barged into my room and demand that they needed my help. Always ready to do something new with the family, I see everyone gathered around a mysterious red bowl on the kitchen table. My mom began to explain the contents: hundreds of tiny snails they had retrieved from the river. Our job was to take each and every snail out of its shell and remove the foot while we were at it. I felt like I was in biology class again, dissecting and identifying creatures of the sort. Taking a toothpick, we would grab the soft body from the shell and slowly twirl out the organism that curled up inside its once protective home. To my amazement, the snails were a gorgeous turquoise/blue marbled color. Carefully completing this delicate task, my Host Mom explained we would have a “new menu” with snail soup. During our conversation, she also pointed at the family pet Yorki, Gami, while saying dog food. I first thought that he was going to eat the snail soup too. It wasn’t until she picked up the dog and reenacted gnawing at his skin that I realized the other new menu item this week would be dog meat. Apparently dog meat is my host sister’s favorite meal, so she is the one to blame, not me! Although I am not ashamed to say that I am much more of a cat person than a dog person, I still had to embrace myself for this other new menu item. I must admit, dog is not the worst meat on the planet, although it’s not something I will crave too often. I’ll just call it a day and cross it off the bucket list of things that weren’t really on the bucket list to begin with.

  One thing I just adore about Korea, or at least my Host Mom, is that many people are super healthy with the foods they eat and the natural process of obtaining said food. When I say natural process, I mean hiking up the mountain across the river, digging up roots, scouting out mushrooms, and plucking off leaves in the nearby forest. My Host Dad came home the other night with this mushroom the size of my head. My Host Mom Google Translated “this has anti-tumor properties.” She’s speaking my language! Nearly every meal, she points out the anti-bacterial, cytotoxic, anti-tumor activity of all the seasonings, roots, leaves and vegetables. Even the turquoise color in the snails apparently has a “100% cure for liver cancer.” Not only do I now know the random Korean words for mountain, cancer, liver, and mushroom, but I also know where I will be sending my future patients instead of prescribing them manufactured medicine.