Tteokguk

Tteokguk

On the first day of the New Year, our family, including our grandparents, gather around one big table and share breakfast with each other. This is a tradition in our family that we have been doing since I was a baby. On New Year's Day, we eat traditional Korean food such as kalbi stew, dumplings, kimchi, and rice-cake soup. The food that is always on our table every year is the rice-cake soup, called tteokguk.

Tteokguk can be a very special dish for lots of people, because it differs based on what ingredients the cook puts into the soup. My mom, the cook in our family, adds sliced eggs, seaweed, dumplings, cooked beef, and green onions as a topping to the broth. Sometimes the rice-cakes that my mother uses are in the colors of pink, green, and white. The toppings and the rice-cakes make the dish more beautiful and full of various tastes. It is also the best combined with kimchi, which everyone in our family enjoys.

I like to wake up to the sound of my mom chopping up the carrots and the appetizing smell of her freshly cooked tteokguk. I love to have tteokguk as my first food for the new year, not only because it tastes delicious, but also because it helps me to realize that the new year has come and I have grown as a person. In Korea, people believe that by eating tteokguk, they will get a year older. Unlike how birthdays are celebrated in American culture, in Korea we grow one year older as the new year comes. My Grandma always told me that if I finish the whole bowl of tteokguk, I will become more mature and successful.

For me, tteokguk is a very special food because it gives our family joy and a strong bond. The warmth of the tteokguk brings our family an opportunity to get closer to each other. As the heat of the tteokguk spreads out throughout my body and makes me warm from the cold January weather, the chewiness of the rice-cake will follow and make a perfect harmony in my mouth. When I chew the rice-cake, it will move around my mouth like a slippery snake. The unique texture of the tteokguk will entertain me and help me finish the whole bowl. Tteokguk also means a lot to our family, because we believe that as we finish the whole bowl our New Year's wish will come true. We will gather around the table and make a wish before we start eating the delicious dishes that my mom and grandma made. Even though tteokguk is just a bowl of rice-cake soup, it is a dish that contains my dreams and the love my family gives me.