The Breakfast of Choice in a Nation of Hangover Experts
The Breakfast of Choice in a Nation of Hangover Experts
Sulguk in Seoul
An entire boulevard had been blocked off near COEX Mall and a mainsail-size screen set up for South Korea’s World Cup game against Nigeria. Though the match didn’t start until 3:30 am, when it would be beamed in from Durban, South Africa, thousands had already gathered in anticipation. Vendors kept us well supplied with cans of beer, and as the alcohol flowed, a continuous stream of male revelers filed into the garden of a swank office tower to relieve themselves.
In an attempt to blend in, I had put on a South Korea jersey—red with a tiger on it—but I had no cause for concern. The crowd was well behaved, even when Nigeria evened up the score in the second half. It was hard to imagine a less hooliganistic crowd of soccer supporters.
When the match ended in a tie, at 2-2, the sky was already turning pale blue-gray. The crowd dispersed in all directions, and I shuffled off with my girlfriend, Eun-jeong, to an all-night restaurant.
“Have you tried sulguk before?” she asked, and I admitted I hadn’t. The name means “alcohol stew,” she explained, because it helps with hangovers. When the steaming-hot witches’ brew arrived on the table, it was swimming with a potpourri of pork: head meat, intestines, and thickly sliced blood sausage. Chopped spring onion and crushed perilla seed added texture to the milky white broth. The cauldron it was served in looked large enough to feed a small party of drinkers, and we used a ladle to fill our smaller plastic bowls.
Eun-jeong ordered a bottle of soju, which seemed like an appropriate pairing with alcohol stew. Though unaccustomed to having hard alcohol for breakfast, I soon got into the rhythm of chasing bitter shots of soju with spoonfuls of hot broth.
In a country where hangover stews fill a sizable culinary niche, morning-after tonics occupy entire shelves of convenience store refrigerators, and drinking in public is widely tolerated, this was a perfectly normal way to end the night, or begin the new day.
The restaurant was still busy when we staggered out into the sunshine. I had a flight to catch later that morning and was hoping that my breakfast of sulguk would save me from a crippling hangover. Surely I could trust in the wisdom of centuries of Korean drinkers, couldn’t I?