Lunar New Year Guk _
떡국, TteokGuk
TteokGuk is a traditional Korean New Year soup. Korean people celebrate the Lunar New Year, and this soup is the main dish for that holiday meal. On New Year’s morning, we wear HanBok (Korean traditional clothes) and greet (bow) our grandparents, parents, or relatives. Older people give a blessing for the New Year to their children along with some money called “SaeBatDon” (새뱃돈). After greeting the older people, family and relatives eat breakfast together. The meal will have New Year’s soup, different kinds of vegetable dishes, fish, jeon, japvchae, galbi jjim, and so on. Since Koreans calculate their age according to New Year, and not according to their actual birthday, eating the bowl of New Year soup on New Year’s Day means becoming one year older. It might sound a little crazy. Sometime we joke, “I don’t want to eat more than one bowl of New Year’s soup, otherwise I would become more than one year older.” hehe
Yield: 2 Servings
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- SaeHae Bok MaNi BaDeuSeYo (새해 복 많이 받으세요) = Have a lot of good fortune for the new year. This is the Korean greeting for New Year’s Day.
