Mi Sook gave me a belated birthday gift - a bowl of instant Korean seaweed soup and rice.
I guess that's because she knows that I watch a lot of Korean dramas, and noticed that it is customary for the birthday boy/girl to drink a bowl of seaweed soup in the morning. In fact, I asked her if she had some birthday soup on her birthday as well, but she said she had the 'instant' version.
The birthday soup is called miyeok-guk, which translates to brown seaweed soup. People do eat this on normal days as well.
Brown seaweed soup was actually consumed by a woman who delivered a child. It has abundant iodine to reduce the swollen body and calcium to help build strong bones, which are all important for both mother and child.
It is symbolic to have on a birthday, because while a baby’s mother has this soup, the baby also eats it through the milk. Indirectly by drinking this soup, people remember their mother’s hard work for delivering them and say thank you to their mother on their birthday.
I had the meal in office a couple of nights ago. I like the soup a lot, but also keeping in mind the amount of MSG in the soup. I'm probably more impressed with the instant rice. Just heat it up for a few seconds and you can enjoy your meal!
Thanks Mi Sook for the gift, and please correct me if I wasn't accurate on any points above as I extracted it from various sources in the Internet.
I guess that's because she knows that I watch a lot of Korean dramas, and noticed that it is customary for the birthday boy/girl to drink a bowl of seaweed soup in the morning. In fact, I asked her if she had some birthday soup on her birthday as well, but she said she had the 'instant' version.
The birthday soup is called miyeok-guk, which translates to brown seaweed soup. People do eat this on normal days as well.
Brown seaweed soup was actually consumed by a woman who delivered a child. It has abundant iodine to reduce the swollen body and calcium to help build strong bones, which are all important for both mother and child.
It is symbolic to have on a birthday, because while a baby’s mother has this soup, the baby also eats it through the milk. Indirectly by drinking this soup, people remember their mother’s hard work for delivering them and say thank you to their mother on their birthday.
I had the meal in office a couple of nights ago. I like the soup a lot, but also keeping in mind the amount of MSG in the soup. I'm probably more impressed with the instant rice. Just heat it up for a few seconds and you can enjoy your meal!
Thanks Mi Sook for the gift, and please correct me if I wasn't accurate on any points above as I extracted it from various sources in the Internet.
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