Never Eat the Brown Soup

Grade 6 - little sods

Snowy

It’s been snowing quite a bit here in Seoul over the past week. It was cold and icy and the kids pelted me with snowballs every morning as I walked through the school gates. Two of the boys ran up to me shouting “teacher, teacher, never eat the yellow snow” – I laughed.. then wondered how they knew that because I certainly didn't teach it.

But I’m not here to talk about snow. It’s winter, it’s cold, we get it.. let’s move on. No, I’m here to talk about school lunches. I like food and am really not fussy about what I eat. In fact there are only two things I will not eat – any type of nut and anything banana tasting or smelling. Banana reminds me of baby sick… but moving on!...

When I arrived in South Korea four months ago I thought I might struggle with the food. Meals at orientation weren’t exactly a culinary delight. Rice and kimchi with every meal is the norm here but it was the weird attempt at western foods thrown into the mix that freaked me out. Soggy chips were the main issue.

Anyway, once out of the weird orientation bubble and back into the real world food improved immensely… on the whole. At school we get a full cooked lunch everyday and during the first few weekends of being here I realised how much I was relying on those lunches to stay fed – I hadn't been brave enough to buy anything much at the supermarket at that point. Now, four months in, the school has stopped trying to impress me but the lunches are still great and far better than I can attempt to make at home.

Monday:

The worst food day of the week and the day of the Brown Soup. I have no idea what is in the brown soup but from the taste of it, I can only assume it's the left overs of the previous weeks soups left to 'mature' over the weekend. It is disgusting.

clockwise from the top left: pickled radish, fried potato/egg thing, pineapple, Brown Soup, rice with veg stuff.

Tuesday:

We've got all the main ingredients to a school lunch here. Rice, kimchi, soup, meat, and veg. No surprises. Surprising!

clockwise from the top left: kimchi, veg and stuff, meat (possibly pork?), cabbage and veg soup, rice.





Special Wednesdays:
For some unknown reason, most schools in Seoul have a special lunch on a Wednesday. I've had everything from spag bol to cheesy chips.
This particular Wednesday was a little less special than usual. Boo.

clockwise from the top left: veg stuff, kimchi, mini mandu, beef noodle soup, apple and carrot juice and ricecake.


Thursday:
I remember this day. Mostly because I enjoyed everything which is rare. I should clarify, I DO NOT enjoy kimchi... but I can't be arsed with the fallout if I ever didn't put it on my tray!

clockwise from top left: tomatoes, kimchi, ddeokbokki and quail eggs, scrambled egg soup, rice with seaweed and stuff.

Friday:

This lunch was a whole load of weird. The bread and the 'soup' were the weird bits. The bread has a weird buttery/sugar coating and I guess is meant to be dessert along with the orange. The soup was unexpectedly fishy. Weird.
clockwise from top left: orange, breaded meat + unknown sauce, kimchi, sugar bread, fish porridge soup, rice.

This is the tale of what happens if you're a vegetarian here in South Korea or generally don't like spicy food.

Sad times.

And this is an example from a third school.


So the moral of this story is yes, obviously don't eat the yellow snow but more importantly never, ever eat the brown soup!

I'm off to Vietnam in four days time so it's safe to say I won't be posting again before then - it takes me that long to pack a bag! I'll be gone until mid-Jan but I'll be posting pics bragging about drinking cold beers on sunny Thai beaches in the meantime.

Merry Christmas everyone!!