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rice cake, or tteok. You might think of Korea’s ubiquitous
glutinous rice dessert as nothing more than a tasty treat, but it’s
so much more than that. Tteok is deeply ingrained into
the daily lives of the Korean people — wherever there is a major
rite of passage, there is tteok. The Tteok Museum,
located on the second and third floors of the Institute of Traditional
Korean Food, takes visitors through the rich history and tradition
of Korea’s favorite dessert. What’s more, it gives you a chance
to learn the tteok-making process through hands-on programs
and, of course, sample the wares in the first-floor cafe. |
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A Unique Institution |
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 The
Tteok Museum opened in 2002, and is the
only museum of its kind in Korea. Explained
guide Youn Young-sim, “Tteok is
deeply ingrained in the daily lives of Koreans,
but there were no museums for it. The museum
was opened to show people the many kinds
of tteok and disappearing tteok
traditions.”
The museum is run
by the Institute of Traditional Korean Food,
one of Korea’s premier research and educational
bodies dedicated to Korea’s national cuisine.
The first floor of the museum examines the
diverse world of the Korean rice cake, with
displays breaking them down by season and
preparation method. The second floor, however,
looks at the use of rice cakes in the many
rites of passage that traditionally marked
the lives of Koreans.
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2,000 Years
of Tradition |
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 Tteok
is not only one of Korea’s most symbolic
foods, but also one of its oldest. Youn
explains, “Korea has been producing tteok
for about 2,000 years, going back to
the Three Kingdom’s Period. Now there are
about 200 forms of rice cake — 198, precisely
speaking.”
Indeed, one of the
things most fascinating about the displays
is the mind-boggling diversity of sizes,
shapes and colors in which tteok manifests
itself. And the color is important, too
— quite often, rice cakes are chosen for
particular occasions thanks to their color
and the role they play in Korea’s traditional
yin-yang cosmology. Take, for instance,
the white garae tteok commonly
consumed sliced in tteokguk soup
on New Year’s Day. New Year’s Day is traditionally
considered a day with a lot of yang, or
positive energy. White, too, symbolizes
yang, hence the use of white garae tteok.
Other colors have their uses, too. Red,
for instance, was commonly believed to be
effective in scaring away ghosts, goblins
and all other manners of things that go
bump in the night. On Dongji, the winter
solstice, red-bean porridge with rice cakes
was served —the long night and its attendant
beasties requiring culinary caution. Likewise,
on the table of a first birthday, or dol,
you’ll find rainbow-colored tteok.
This symbolizes the hope that the child’s
dreams will grow like a rainbow.
Region plays a major role, too. Take, for
instance, songpyeon, the half-moon
shaped rice cakes with chestnut paste eaten
en masse during the Chuseok holiday. Its
color and even shape will change from place
to place — along the North Korean coast,
for instance, they take the shape of a clam
shell, in the hope that the rice cakes will
bring in a good catch in that shell-fish
dependent region.
How
to make Songpyeon
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Disappearing
Traditions |
 The
spring Dano festival, for instance, is nowhere
near as celebrated as it used to be. Yet
through the museum, we can learn about the
unique food that used to be consumed on
this important holiday, including the bright
green charyunbyeong, made from
a kind of marsh plant. The summer yudu,
on the 15th day of the 6th lunar month,
was at one time celebrated with outings
to local mountain streams and waterfalls,
accompanied by fortifying meals that included
sanghwabyeong rice cakes. |
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Four Kinds
of Rice Cakes |
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Despite
the dizzying variety of tteok,
ultimately, there are only four basic methods
of preparation. They are:
Boiled
Tteok: Most often
encountered in gyeongdan, the small,
powdered sticky rice cake balls that often
come in many colors, depending on the powder.
Steamed
Tteok: Many forms
of rice cake are steamed, including the
Chuseok treat songpyeon.
Pounded
Tteok: Rice cake
made from pounding rice with a large hammer
— you can see this in action at many folk
villages and folk festivals around the country.
The most common pounded tteok is
injeolmi.
Fried
Tteok: You can
even prepare tteok in a frying
pan — hwajeon, a rice cake often
decorated with a flower pedal design, is
made this way. |
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An Educational...
and Delicious Experience |
 If
you’re interested in doing more than just
looking at the exhibits, you can also enroll
in one of the Institute of Traditional Korean
Food classes. The institute has classrooms
on the fourth to 10th floors of the building,
and offers three classes for foreigners
— a tteok-making course (30,000 won), kimchi-making
course (50,000 won) and traditional food
making course (70,000 won). In the last
one, you learn to make two kinds of food,
and a translator is provided (the other
two classes require the student to bring
his or her own translator). You also get
to wear a hanbok throughout the class. To
participate, you should sign up at the museum
homepage (www.tkmuseum.or.kr)
or call (02) 741-5447.
Of course,
there’s always the first floor tteok cafe,
where you can enjoy some rice cake with
a cup of tea. As part of the museum’s educational
mission, it also sends out teachers to local
schools to teach children about tteok and
traditional Korean cuisine. |
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[Getting
There]
The
museum is a short walk from
the front gate of Changdeokgung
Palace in the direction of Jongno
3-ga Station, Exit 6. It is
open Monday to Saturday, 10:00—5:00
and on Sunday, 12:00—5:00. It
is closed on Seollal and Chuseok.
Entrance is 3,000 won.
[Find
out more!]
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Tteok Tteok Revolution!
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Tteok and Kitchen Utensil Museum |
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Written by Robert
Koehler / Photographs by Ryu
Seunghoo
The article courtesy
of Seoul magazine
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