The $10 Bowl of Rice

Rather expensive, right? Well maybe not. Let me explain.

Rice in Korea today isn't what it was a few years ago. In the past, rice was rice. You ate rice, and you ate other things with rice. You NEVER put soy sauce on your rice. Only foreigners would do such an unsavory thing as to flavor their rice.

But times change.

It has always been the custom during the first full moon after the new year to mix several grains with the rice as part of a special meal. Typically the rice was mixed with four other grains--sorghum, millet, black beans, and sweet beans, and it had to be shared with three other families to ensure good fortune for the coming year. Now, my rice always has beans in it. Big beans, little beans, brown beans, green beens, and even little black somethings that look like they might be bugs, but I'm sure they are seeds of some sort. It's supposed to be more nourishing than plain rice.

I don't complain, because I like rice, and the beans add a little variety to an utherwise bland offering.

But this bowl of rice was different. I watched my wife fixed it, and what she did was to take a fresh crab and scoop out the egg sack along with the liquid and put it in the bowl with the rice. Then she proceeded to mix them all together into a not so tasty-looking brownish mess.

Now I have learned to eat a lot of raw things in the 20 years I have lived in Korea. Raw beef, raw fish, raw octopus, raw squid, raw oysters, and probably a few more I wasn't aware of. I have eaten raw baby crabs (picture) after a few sips on the local brew known as soju. They take the baby crabs, cut them in half and serve them with a spicy sauce in a bowl with the dinner. You use the chopsticks to pick it up, insert the cut part of the shell in your mouth, squish it down with your teeth, and then you kind of suck the raw meat out of the shell. It's actually quite tasty once you get used to it, but the soju does help.

Well this was the first time for raw adult crab. Female no less. It had to be female because the eggs are the real delicacy. But they are expensive. In fact, my wife informed me that these crabs cost 10,000 won, which is just over $10, each. For a home cooked Korean meal, that is a lot of money. Even most restaurant meals are relatively cheap, unless you eat in a Western style tourist restaurant.

After eating the rice, we then picked the rest of the raw meat out from the legs and claws. How did it taste? Actually quite good. It was a little salty, since crabs are a salt-water crustacean, and it obviously had the slight seafood taste that all crabs have, but there was just that undefinable something that made it really good. I enjoyed it, and since February is crab season in Korea, we had it several times.

As an aside, the Korean typically eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and supper. The meal consists mainly of a soup, some rice, and side dishes which consist of various vegetables with some meat thrown in every so often. Trust me, you haven't lived until you have had hot spicy soup, rice, and kimche (a pickled, spicy cabage dish) for breakfast. It really starts the day off with a bang.