If you order jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles), the jjampong (spicy seafood noodle soup) that the person next to you is eating looks delicious, and if you order jjampong, the jjajangmyeon that the person next to you is eating looks delicious. So, the “Nation of Delivery” (a nickname for Korea due to its developed food delivery culture) has developed an ingenious menu: jjamjjamyeon (half jjajangmyeon, half jjampong). But does half a bowl of jjampong and half a bowl of jjajangmyeon really give us more fulfilling satisfaction than one bowl of jjajangmyeon and one bowl of jjampong? Is it simply a matter of individual taste?
If you are eating jjamjjamyeon and someone next to you is cooking ramen, wouldn’t you want to eat a bite of ramen again? And want to have a spoonful of the broth too. Then should we develop jjamjja-ramyeon? Will we eventually end up creating a single menu called “tangbokjjamjjaratteoktuisunkimbap” (a humorous combination of various popular dishes)? Considering the reality that tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) already includes glass noodles, ramen, sundae (Korean sausage), fried food, gopchang (small intestines), and mozzarella cheese, and that Neoguri (a type of instant ramen) and Korean beef garnish are mixed into Jjapaghetti (another type of instant ramen), it doesn’t seem impossible at all.
But perhaps it would be best to gratefully and slowly savor what you have chosen, whether it’s jjajangmyeon or jjampong. Isn’t it better to choose only one thing and eat it fully than to be greedy and try to taste everything that looks delicious? Was it truly satisfying for the aristocrats of some countries in the past to only taste various delicacies and then vomit or spit them out? Were they satisfied, or were they ultimately more dissatisfied than farmers who ate a simple meal while weeding in the fields due to desires they could never fill? It is a matter to think about.
No matter how delicious Sushi Cho at the Chosun Hotel was last month, when I quietly recall it, I can’t even properly remember the taste. It appears and disappears as if it were a doll made of fog, within reach yet untouchable.
A bowl of ganjjajang (jjajangmyeon with a thicker sauce) in front of me now that I am hungry is much more satisfying than the “memory” of eating a special meal. After all, after two or three hours, ganjjajang and omakase (chef’s choice sushi) become the same thing. They become increasingly indistinguishable as time passes. There can be no difference now between sushi or tteokbokki I ate a year ago. It’s fortunate if I even remember it.
The saying “Ghosts who died eating look good” is a lie. A ghost just looks like a ghost. So, trying to eat good things while alive to become a good-looking ghost is a foolish thing.
Of course, eating deliciously is important. You must eat deliciously to be grateful, and you must eat gratefully to find it delicious. And above all, it’s more delicious to share. Kal-guksu (knife-cut noodles) shared with others is more delicious and remains in memory longer than tuna belly eaten alone. The words and hearts shared while eating food often remain in memory for a lifetime.
In the end, we eat, drink, and live to share words and hearts. No matter how many times you repeatedly eat food that melts in your mouth, makes your eyes close involuntarily, and makes your whole body tremble, it has no meaning in itself. Eating only sushi will not allow you to breathe underwater. Eating horse meat will not make you run faster. It’s just a hamster wheel of eating and excreting.
What you eat, with whom, with what words, and with what heart you eat, even if you eat alone, what or whom you think about while eating—determines all the meaning. And that meaning brings lasting satisfaction that no one can take away.
It is not a good habit to attach the cliché “good people and good place” everywhere. A place where you meet people who seem helpful to you, promote a sense of belonging with insincere words, and solidify a tacit agreement to become each other’s back doors later is just a third-rate theater stage where greed meets greed and they chuckle while having different dreams.
I think of you. I’m worried about whether you are eating well. Everything is more delicious when I eat with you. You are like family to me. Perhaps we should focus on sharing these hearts with more people through meals rather than worrying about the menu. Isn’t that the only way that the act of eating, which is otherwise just a repetition of eating and excreting, can participate in the meaning of life? The meaning of a meal, which I have come to think about again because we are in an era where it has become difficult to meet and have a meal together.
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