As legions of K-food bloggers will testify, Korea is home to some of the best eating experiences in Asia. Most would agree, there's nothing quite like a bubbling bowl of jjigae for comfort food, or a round of somaek (소맥) and kalbi (갈비) to kick-start a work night out. That's because Korean food is, by and large, very accessible to the palate, and uses plenty of familiar, fresh ingredients and good quality produce.

Yet, there are other, more puzzling elements to food in Korea. Everyone's heard about live octopus, or sannakji [산낙지] and silk worm larvae, aka beondegi (번데기).  In my opinion, however, some of the quirkiest aspects to food in Korea concern the things we see and experience daily. This is the food that I'm interested in.

Over the coming months, I'm going to be taking a look at some of the everyday mysteries concerning food here. For example, what are those small rubbery, brown eggs at the convenience store? And why are the apples here so big? It's the answers to these types of questions that The WTF? Files: Investigations into the Unexplained will seek to uncover.

To kick off, I'm looking at processed meat products.  Processed meat first became popular during the Korean War. Back then the Korean populace would use and adapt anything they could procure from the American military bases out of necessity. Today, however, the industry thrives. From Chuseok gift sets to convenience store snacks, processed meat products are ubiquitous. Yet to many Koreans and foreigners living here, processed meat remains a bewildering and unpalatable culinary preference.

My own experiences of processed meat are pretty limited, so in order to try to understand why it's so popular, I've decided to try out some common processed meat products for myself. Here goes!

1) Processed meat on a stick





Few nations do stick food quite like the Koreans  so for my first processed experience, I chose this pair. The one on the top is called the Soojbulgoki, made by the ominous sounding Sajodaerim corporation. The one on the bottom is a garlic sausage from Han-sung Enterprises. The first thing I noticed about these sausages was that they looked more or less the same with the vacuum packs on as without them. Both had an incredibly smooth texture, and literally "melted" in my mouth. The garlic variety was only very faintly garlic-tasting, but had a distinct frankfurter twang to it. Overall not too bad, but I don't think I could eat a whole one.

2) Processed meat in a tube

I've often seen these poking out from kids' school bags and on convenience store shelves and wondered what they were. Although most of these are actually supposed to be cheese, this one is a mixture of cheese and ham - kind of like a croque monsieur with plastic wrapping instead of toast if you think about it. Also very smoothly textured, the first thing I noted about this was that it smelled unmistakably like sour milk. Unfortunately the next thing I noted was that it tasted like sour milk too, and it turned out to be the only item I was unable to swallow.

3) Processed meat in a tin

Last of all, I tried spam. Although this isn't strictly Korean, I've decided to include it because a) It's produced under license in Korea and b) I can't resist the pull of a powerful brand image. As soon as I opened the tin I was hit with a very powerful odour not unlike dog food, and as I prised the block from the tin the gelatinous layer around it did little to whet my appetite. However, when I actually tried it, I found spam to be reasonably good. Unsurprisingly, it was very much like corned beef, and I could picture frying this up with some potatoes and onions to make a hash if I had to.

From my taste test I can see why processed meat is popular. They all appeared to have a very high salt content, which is good for providing instant gratification on the cheap. It also struck me that processed meat is quite similar in regards to texture and substance as popular Korean foods, such as odeng and rice cake.

Personally, however, I'm not a fan. Although I'm not so naive as to think that all my food is as pure as the driven snow, the samples I tried felt way too processed for my liking. In my opinion, meat shouldn't usually "melt," and I tend to like most of mine to come from the same continent, if not the same animal.

Sorry processed meat. I want to believe, but I can't.

Next Week: Weird Eggs

Have you had any positive experiences with processed meat in Korea? Perhaps it's a guilty pleasure you want to get off your chest? Whatever your thoughts, please let me know below.

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