Vegetables and Dog Meat

Vegetables

 List of Korean dishes, Vegetables.

Korean cuisine uses a wide variety of vegetables, which are often served uncooked, either in salads or pickles, as well as cooked in various stews, stir-fried dishes, and other hot dishes. Commonly used vegetables include Korean radish, Napa cabbage, cucumber, potato, sweet potato, spinach, scallions, garlic, chili peppers, seaweed, zucchini, mushrooms and lotus root. Several types of wild greens, known collectively as chwinamul (such as Aster scaber), are a popular dish, and other wild vegetables such as bracken fern shoots (gosari) or Korean bellflower root (doraji) are also harvested and eaten in season. Medicinal herbs, such as ginseng, reishi, wolfberry, Codonopsis pilosula, and Angelica sinensis, are often used as ingredients in cooking, as in samgyetang.

Medical foods

Medical food (boyangsik) is a wide variety of specialty foods prepared and eaten for medicinal purposes, especially during the hottest 30-day period in the lunar calendar, called sambok. Hot foods consumed are believed to restore ki, as well as sexual and physical stamina lost in the summer heat Commonly eaten boyangshik include: ginseng, chicken, dog, abalone, eel, carp, bone marrow, pig kidneys and black goat. These foods are popularly consumed by groups of men as a macho, backslapping activity

Dog meat

 Dog meat and Dog meat consumption in South Korea.

A dish made with dog meat in South Korea

The consumption of dog meat in what is now Korea dates back to antiquity. Today, the primary dog breed raised for meat, the nureongi (누렁이), differs from those breeds raised for pets, which Koreans may keep in their homes. Dog meat is usually eaten during the summer months, in either roasted form or prepared in soups. The most popular of these soups is gaejang-guk (also called bosintang), a spicy stew which is believed by consumers to balance the body's heat during the summer months; followers of the custom claim this is done to ensure good health by balancing one's gi, or vital energy of the body. A 19th century version of gaejang-guk explains the dish is prepared by boiling dog meat with scallions and chili powder. Variations of the dish contain chicken and bamboo shoots. While the dishes are still popular in Korea with a segment of the population, dog is not as widely consumed as beef, chicken, and pork.

There is one perception Behind eating the dog meat, it has been eaten during summer only Korean People have there bleif that during summer dog meat helps them to maintain the body heat and helps to gain more stamina.