Unusual Food Forays

Seoul is a place where one can easily fulfill their odd food fantasies. Koreans love food with a single-minded passion. Perhaps a result of accumulated years of strife, there is little that falls outside the category of edible food in the Korean palate. Raw ground beef garnished with a raw egg? Yes. Fermented soybean paste? Yes. Silkworm larvae? Yes.

With that said, Korean food is delicious, and one of the highlights of living in Seoul. As a temporary resident, I've been trying to maximize my culinary exploration.

My unusual food forays do not qualify as food fantasies, but rather food curiosities. See if you can identify the following.

First,

Not quite Old Boy style, but unquestionably wriggly:


Second,

Actually, it looks more like this:

And it's pretty delicious once you get over the psychological associations of loving pets, man's best friend. In reality, the animals used for food are not kidnapped from homes or impounded strays, but raised on farms like other livestock.

Just for clarification, this particular dish was not sought out as part of my food experience mission, but is a food I was pressured into eating by my boss who wanted to give me a sound cultural experience. It was one of the three hottest days of the summer, on which Koreans traditionally eat dog meat or a hot ginseng-stuffed chicken in soup, and my first week at the company.

It's a stereotypically male dish-- said to raise stamina-- and consistent with this, I was the only female in the restaurant.

Next on my list: the chubby pink sea worm.