Open your mouth and close your eyes!

Boy did I get a big surprise. I was invited out to dinner this evening by a Korean man I met at a party recently. He speaks pretty good English and runs an academy here, so I figured dinner could be fun. It was certainly an adventure!

So he originally wanted to take me to a traditional Korean restaurant, and I love Korean food so I was excited about that. Unfortunately we couldn't find the restaurant he was looking for, so he asked me if I liked crab. Of course! So we head for a crab restaurant where we could pick from steamed, pickled, or boiled crab....or so said the menu. And of course he says the pickled crab is best, and when in Korea.....

So I'm thinking pickled in terms of salty briney...maybe boiled in a brine? What did not occur to me was that pickled really did mean fermented. Yes folks, I ate crab that had been sitting in a pot in the ground for "at least three months" It appears to be raw, but the fermentation "cooked" it. And believe it or not, it was delicious. I mean really good! Even better than the fermented oysters (which I also ate this evening) that had been rotting for "at least two months." I should have known by now that as much as Koreans love their kimchi, anything that is labeled "pickled" is actually fermented. And just to put in perspective their love of this process, in addition to the kimchi oysters and crabs, I also had kimchi seaweed, radish, kale, cabbage, and tree leaves! All with one meal! It was hilarious, and seriously, it was truly tastey.