“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 964 (Sunday) – Insa-Dong memories

Art supplies in
Insa-Dong (2001).

For some reason, on Saturday night, despite a quiet day and the usual amount of coffee, I wasn’t tired at the regular hour and stayed up a couple hours later than usual. At least the “fall back” time change was in my favor and this morning I woke up feeling okay.

The day was long and leisurely, even with an afternoon trip to Nashua in search of Korean pancakes (hotteok) at Trader Joe’s, which someone in a local Facebook food group had posted about. These are a frozen at home in America version of street pancakes that Ex2 and I used to get in Seoul a lifetime ago. A hot fry pan and three minutes per side, and it was sweet pancake goodness on a plate. Maybe next time, I’ll try the microwave instructions for a comparison on texture. 

Our favorite attraction in Insa-Dong.

We used to like to visit Insa-Dong, one of Seoul’ oldest neighborhoods, which is filled with shops selling artist supplies, pottery, traditional hanbok, antiques, and all sort of other things, including street food vendors. While the lady with the monkey on a leash that did tricks was moderately amusing, and the shops had beautiful products, our favorite attraction was the vendor with the grill who made hotteok, a pancake with a brown sugar and cinnamon filling. She would ladle the batter onto the griddle, add the filling, ladle on a bit more batter and they would cook and we would watch them cook. At the magic moment of completion, they would be removed from the grill, slipped into a paper wrapper, and off we went.

Hotteok! Thank you
Trader Joe's.

The hotteok at the early part of the century cost a pittance – like 50 cents each. We’d stand in line in the winter chill to buy one each, then walk to back of the line, eating our hot off the griddle hottteok. By the time we were done eating them, we were next in line at the counter to buy more.

 
The Trader Joe’s frozen hotteok are pretty good. They seem thicker than the fresh street version, but they made for a nice food memory today and will be a great treat on this side of the globe. The other Korean food memory found in the TJ’s freezer case is scallion and pepper pancake. We got those at the food tents in Itaewon and in Clarksville at Mo Mo, our favorite Korean restaurant. Is it weird that for the past few years, the things to look forward most to are usually food related? My, how life has changed.