Jeju

[khiemtran]

Jeju is Korea's holiday isle, famous for its natural beauty and wacky theme parks...





It's also famous for the Haenyeo, or women divers, who founded a matriarchal society possibly as a side-effect of trying to pay less tax.



These days, the Haenyeo are becoming scarce, but Jeju is still known for its seafood.


Note the giant lights on the boats. I'm not sure whether they are supposed to help attract fish (or squid) or just to help with fishing at night. All the larger boats seemed to have them.

Also, see the length of the "tails" on the fillets on the nigiri sushi in this next picture. We had to wonder if maybe on volcanic Jeju, seafood was cheap but rice was precious. The soup on the left is made with a very generous serve of sea urchin roe (just visible) and abalone seemed to be everywhere (the local style of making rice porridge is to make it with fresh abalone).



Another local specialty is pork made from Jeju black pigs.



And here's how they look a bit later... Our hostess showed us how to eat the meat wrapped in the lettuce and perilla leaves in the foreground. She was very funny when doing so, including going "No! No! No! No!" when I tried to spoon too much chilli sauce into my leaves and when she was trying to mime to me that I should gobble mine down before spilling too much sauce on my pants.



The flavour was quite distinctive. However some purists still insist that the taste was still better in the old days when the pigs were fed on human waste, as illustrated in this somewhat alarming scene. NB: This was not the restaurant we went to... Would you eat at a restaurant with a scene like this on the roof?

Comments

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

It's also famous for the Haenyeo, or women divers, who founded a matriarchal society possibly as a side-effect of trying to pay less tax.

<follows link> Interesting. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I'll confess I hadn't heard the tax theory before reading the wikipedia article.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

One of my friends in grad school grew up in China, and had family in a small village, where, yup, that's exactly what they fed the pigs, which they then ate.

perilla leaves--they're called shiso, and the green ones are called aojiso, in Japanese. I love the flavor! I have them growing in my yard.

The food in your fourth photo looks *mouthwatering* (why am I always hungry when I comment on LJ?)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, the food was excellent. I was there for a conference, so it was pretty much work, food and sleep for a week, although I got to go out for a little bit towards the end.