Seoulist

A story about growing up with odeng, and growing old with it.

Over the course of my two years in Korea, I developed a passion for the local cuisine and started a project profiling Korean foods. I started with odeng—even though odeng isn’t technically Korean in origin, it’s been a part of the culture for a long time. I asked my co-teacher what he knew about odeng and he told me that his college friend’s father used to make odeng in Busan, now lives in Gunsan, and made his own special variety.

The odeng cost us almost nothing, it was only effort that went in. It was really things nobody else wanted. But it tasted amazing. It is what I think french fries are now for children maybe. It was a treat for us.

I got to meet this guy later on. I asked him to write something in Korean about odeng, my co-teacher translated it, and I took some privileges in polishing it up for today.

I cannot imagine a better advertisement for the odeng man outside my apartment.

Bok Do-sung’s Odeng:

When I was a boy my mother would send me and my brother to Jagalchi market to collect the scraps of fish from her cousin’s fish stand. He would send us back with a white plastic bag of slimy fish guts and we would take turns carrying it at arm’s length.

My mother would slit the bottom of the bag and pour the innards into a little hand grinder outside our kitchen. She didn’t want to make odeng in the kitchen. The smell was too strong, and there was always too much liquid. Our tomato plants were watered with fish blood.

She put all kinds of things into that grinder. I remember one time she had a bag full of persimmon peels. The neighbors had family visiting the day before and had picked all the persimmons off their tree. She asked for the peels. She didn’t waste anything.

The mix that came out had a dull orange color, like old leaves, and when she started steaming them a sweet overripe smell came out. It was July. She made her odeng in thin circular disks. On that day it tasted really sweet and full. It was something special.

The odeng cost us almost nothing, it was only effort that went in. Maybe now it would be worth ten won per kilo. It was really things nobody else wanted. But it tasted amazing. So delicious, as I remember it. It is what I think french fries are now for children maybe. It was a treat for us.

Now odeng is usually served in broth, and we did that too, but we would also boil it with whatever old herbs we had. My mother grew basil, I think she was the only person who grew basil in our neighborhood.

I started working for the manufacturing company when I was 19, and I worked there for 21 years. I don’t want to say the name of the company, because they make a lot of odeng in Korea, and I don’t want to say anything bad about them. I learned a lot while I was there. I started in processing—doing what my mother was doing, but on a much, much bigger scale. Later I became a supervisor and then I was put in management and oversaw the finances of incoming and outgoing products. That’s how I learned accounting.

Now I’m retired and I make my own odeng. And a lot of people ask me why I make my own. They say, “You can buy this on the street for no money!” And that’s true. I can buy odeng for my grandchildren. I can take them out for Italian every night and buy them bags of fresh persimmons. I buy them baseball caps and action figures and I spoil them. I give less than my mother did, but they get more. Money is funny that way. If you grind money up do you think it would taste good? But that isn’t the point, it isn’t about saving anymore.

My odeng is something totally different. Instead of taking the worst parts of the fish, I take some of the best parts. I mix in all my special herbs and spices. I make my own broth, and the smell when I steam my circles of odeng, it’s really good.

If you go to 99.9% of the places that sell odeng in Korea you will get the normal stuff, which is fine. It’s good, and I would eat it too if I didn’t have something better. And that salty squishy brothy stuff you bite into will be tasty, but it won’t be special—it won’t be wonderful, and that’s what our food should be. That’s how I make my odeng, each piece is really special and different. It has flavors you don’t even know about yet.

I don’t miss the taste of that odeng, the persimmon odeng that my mother made. I could try to make that odeng over and over for years and it would never taste the same. So what’s the point? It has nothing to do with my tongue. That taste is tied up in memory, and that’s what I give my grandchildren—a memory of something small and special I made. That’s a nice thing.