The trend of summer adventures with the ever present culinary undertone seems to be becoming quite the visiting card of Dash of Vanilla, but what would be more fitting in holiday season? Today, a trip down to the Royal Łazienki Park and palace on water in the Warsaw, where the Korean embassy had organized a cultural fair.
Stands down the alleys with food, of course, drinks, crash courses in Korean for all over ambitious tourists, all pasted against a background of Tae kwon do martial arts, dancing and singing.
Various rice beverages - lemonade, juice, beer, wine, distilled alcohol, vodka, liqueur - all rather vague in taste, slightly sweet and sneakily filling like itself.
The next stand was intended to be reached after a few shots of the high percent rice goodies - once you get your courage up, you encounter a selection of dried fish, eaten like crisps.
Dried anchovies.
Dried calamari.
Dried pollock fish bits.
And of course, the immortal Kimchi - the proud banner of Korean cooking - in the closest white bowl on the photograph below. Kimchi is a fermented dish made from a selection of different ingredients depending on the region of Korea. Perhaps the most famed, is the spicy cabbage variety, often embellished with brine, scallions, ginger, radish, garlic shrimp sauce (saeujeot) and fish sauce (aekjeot).
And of course, omnipresent national dress, the colours of the fabric highlighted along with the richness of the food, bearing out the long standing traditions of the 5000 years old culture.
Next for degustation - sweet potatoes, solely boiled and similar to their US counterparts. Apparently, they constitute a large portion of the staple starches in Korea.
And the incredible Ginseng, another of the traditional exports of Korea. Ginseng is a rooty plant used in ritual folk medicine as aphrodisiacs, to aid type II diabetes and cosmetics.
The roots are usually dried and eaten sliced, or more commonly, as below, the plant’s essence is prepared in the form of cold drinks and tea to preserve the unique flavour and properties.
Dried persimmon fruit - a rather flat, sweet taste that to me always represented a cross between a peach, apricot and tomato.
And lastly, chestnuts, boiled and cut up, like the Autumn street food found in many cities (Turkish ones for sure) - a tender hazelnut flavour and velvety texture.
That would be it for the lovely witnessing of the dishes, below is the challenge - a degustation plate of dried fish and sticky rice bowls.
A picnic set alongside the Łazienki park lake with friends, however, brings all the charm into the food and makes it yet another adventure of taste. Koreans, after all, are also social eaters.
