Budae-jjigae

 Food brings out so many feelings for many people, sometimes even for people that weren’t involved in events. 

This food named Budae-jjigae is exactly like that. With common ingredients like sauage, kimchi, and other Korean ingredients, Budae-jjigae is a historical stew/soup for many reasons. In the 1900s, sausage had not been imported in Korea. Because of the Korean War and many wars that happened in the Korean Peninsula, food became very scarce. Thus, many Koreans started to just throw everything together in a soup. This became the start of Budae-jjigae.

Budae means military or service in Korean. Because the foreign soldiers had surplus of canned foods like spam, canned beans, etc, Koreans took those and combined with Korean—familiar foods—and named it Budae-jjigae. 

Because of its name, it's almost like Budae-jjigae is a symbol of the hardships and the tragedies of the Korean War just like some memorials. Even though Budae-jjigae is not a building of a monument, it serves the same purpose that the memories live on affecting the lives after. Furthermore, as mentioned in the "Postcards from the Trenches" by Allyson Booth states, "after a short time the memorial becomes another familiar object of the busy town centre," This was the case for the Budae-jjigae because now many people don't know about the origins of the food just like how many people in that town forgot about the meaning of the memorial and treated it as just a town object. 

Nevertheless, the Korean War memorial—which is also named the forgotten war—reminded me of this. The Korean War memorial in Washington D.C. expresses the sacrifices and service that those soldiers who went to the Korean War had to endure for our freedom. At the end of the memorial—which I have been to, myself—is a pool called “Pool of Remembrance” which serves a metaphorical purpose to question people and ask the question: “What are you doing with your life that you got from their sacrifices?” Food like budae-jjigae and the Memorial served as a way to remind myself of the sacrifices that happened in Korea, thousands of miles away from where those soldiers came from. Especially because as a Korean myself, I was very exposed to the sufferings of the Koreans and the aftermath of the war on the Koreans. However, those foreign solders that gave out their foods and served to protect what I have now, shouldn’t have been overlooked and just given a simple “thank you”. Just like what the memorial has engraved, “Freedom is not Free”.