If you have been following my blog, by now you will have read about the foods that I love and want to try as well as the foods that I find to be overrated and the ones that scare me a little. What you haven’t heard about, and what this blog will tell you about, are the foods that I hate and that the one that I would never ever eat even if you paid me. So, lets start with the ones that I hate, shall we?

Chapssaltteok is a different kind of rice cake from tteok. While I love tteok, there is something about the texture and taste of chapssaltteok that makes me want to cringe. These cakes have a slimey and horribly chewy texture and are filled with red bean paste (see in my second blog under overrated). After the first bite, I generally end up carrying them with me until I can find somewhere to throw them so as not to offend the teachers in my staffroom who give them to me.


Eomook is a fried fish paste that can be found in gimbap (see in the first blog under foods that I love). While I do not mind the touch of it together with the other ingredients that tend to block out its taste, I cannot stand it on its own, and cannot eat the fried sticks of fish paste that are sold by many of the street vendors, though they seem to be very popular with many other people.


Sundae (pronounced soonday rather than Sundae as in the yummy ice cream) is a sneaky Korean dish. It tricked me into thinking that it might be something like boerewors, because it looked just like the South African sausage. This made me excited for a few moments, until I actually bit into it and the unexpected chewiness filled my mouth. It was like eating meaty gelatine, and the experience wasn't a pleasant one. When I asked what it actually was, none of the co-teachers at my table could explain it, so I shrugged it off and decided that it would just be something that I would avoid if I ever saw it again. One day, a couple of weeks later, I was driving with one of my co-teacherrs looking for a place for dinner.
"Have you tasted Sundae?"
"I don't know," I admitted ashamedly. I am really bad at remembering names for Korean foods, and in fact had to look up a number of the names for the Korean dishes in this series of blog posts.
"Pig intestine?"
I shook my head, shivering at the thought of trying to eat pig intestine.
"Oh yes! You did! You didn't like."
I stared at her for a few seconds, not quite understanding. And then we drove past a Sundae restaurant and she pointed at the picture above the door. Suffice to say, I have avoided it even more now that I know exactly what it is.

While there are some dishes that I would rather avoid having heard about what they are and them not really fitting into my description of edible, then there is the one dish that I will never eat, no matter how appetising anyone makes it sound or how much anyone paid me (I might eat silkworms or chickens feet for the right amount, though I feel that I would be heavily disturbed thereafter).


Gaegogi is, as you may have guessed, dog meat. It is a dish that is most often eaten by Korean men as it is said to make you strong. There is in fact a national dog eating day, and a couple of my friends were taken to restaurants by their co-teachers to try the meat. Thankfully none of them were forced to do so against their will. Though the dish is still eaten, it is not as common as it used to be and efforts are being made to outlaw the dish. A number of my co-teachers who have tried it insist that the taste of the meat is not enjoyable, and that this is why they refuse to eat it rather than any moral reasons. I wouldn't care if it was the most delicious meal on earth, there is no way that I would ever, ever eat dog meat. The first day that I got to school, my principal took me, together with a number of new teachers to the school, out for lunch. I looked at every dish with a suspicious eye, particularly the unknown meat that was placed on the table. But I was quickly assured by Jenny that I will never be given dog meat without knowing about it. When it is offered to you, the people offering it will want you to know what it is, as it is expensive and they will be proud of being able to offer it to you. So I do not see myself being tricked into eating it anytime soon, and being in a school of mostly female teachers, I doubt very much that I will be tricked into eating it at all.


And thus concludes my series of food blogs. I hope that you have all found it very interesting. I will likely be updating them as I try new things and slotting things into the different categories accordingly. So, watch this space!

To see parts one and two of this series, go here and here.