Cycle 13 – Item 311

12 (Sat) November 2022

Shin Spaghetti

2.0

by me

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

with W

I’d asked W to order some groceries on-line (as many expats in Korea, the Byzantine security protocols required to register a credit card on mobile apps make me avoid the process altogether), including jasmine rice and basmati rice, to which W rolled her eyes and griped that I had to make things unnecessarily complicated, especially since Korean rice is the best, for any application, as Koreans are overwhelmingly wont to believe.  This superiority/familiarity mindset is largely why local short-grained sticky rice tends to be served in Korea, say, at Thai restaurants rather than jasmine rice, or at Indian restaurants rather than basmati rice – I’d wager that cost is vageuly secondary.

To teach her a valuable lesson about the folly of disrespecting a dish by replacing the true starch with an imposter, I made Korean ramyeon but used Italian pasta instead.  Boiled water, stirred in the powdered soup base, added pasta and cooked until a bit past al dente, poached a couple eggs in the broth, tossed in a handful of buchu at the end.  Yes, I realize the lesson would’ve made more sense to make, say, gimbap with jasmine/basmati rice.  But I had already planned on the ramyeon for dinner, which I’d just received as a giveaway at the grocery store earlier in the afternoon.

Surprisingly, the pasta substitution wasn’t that bad.  Not the same texture or taste, of course – the main issue was that the pasta didn’t quite absorb the spicy flavor of the broth – but not entirely disastrous.  Kinda like eating Korean rice in a Thai/Indian restaurant.  Eyes rolled.

(See also FOOD GLOSSARY)