“Budaae Jjigae (Army Stew) Recipe.” Korean Bapsang, 15 Dec. 2019, www.koreanbapsang.com/budae-jjigae-army-stew/.

Another genre I decided to chose to represent the theme of Han is a recipe. When I first think of a piece of writing, especially one that I will be analyzing, I don’t initially think of a recipe. But as I was exploring ideas for the theme of Han, I thought a recipe would be an excellent idea. Korean people are huge foodies, and it’s extremely fitting to have a food dish as an example of Han.

The recipe I chose is for the dish budae jjigae ( 부대찌개), or in English, ‘Army/Military Base Stew.’ Budae jjigae is a Korean stew that consists of spam, sausage, processed cheese, bacon, instant ramen, and other miscellaneous foods, both American and Korean. Today, this dish is a very popular food amongst college students, but the history of this dish starts during the Korean War. During the Korean War, American troops occupied South Korea to fight North Korea. Once the armistice agreement was signed between South and North Korea to end the conflict, for the time being, South Korean’s were left struggling and in a food shortage crisis. For the most part, the only food that they had was the food that American soldiers brought and left, hence the use of spam and sausages.

You might be wondering, how does food relate to the theme of Han? A big part of Han is the shared suffering and resentment of their time under occupation during times of war, and this dish is a huge representation of occupation and suffering. The younger generations might not initially think of the Korean War all the negative emotions that surround that time, so when they see this dish, a lot of the time they’ll just see a weird, cheap, college food. The older generations, on the other hand, see the history of this dish. No traditional Korean dish won’t have spam, hot dogs, processed cheese, and other heavily processed foods. This dish is something made from the leftovers, similar to a casserole in America. It is a dish born from war and poverty, and now it is an extremely popular dish. I think this is a perfect example for Han as Han describes the suffering the people of Korea have experience but they celebrate their suffering together and try to find hopeful outlets of their grief.