Unique Twist on Traditional Rice Cakes-By Eugene Oh (Staff Reporter)
While the steamer is heating up, all the ingredients show off their beautiful colors as they get mixed with the rice flour. An hour passes as taste and beauty blend together, and the small lump of rice becomes tteok(rice cake), a traditional Korean food, satisfying both the appetite and the eyes.
Recently, there has been an effort to promote and develop Korean tteok with exhibitions and contests. on May 9, the Tteok Exhibition and Beautiful Tteok Contest was held in Seoul. Nearly 120 people, including foreigners eager to learn about Korean traditional culture, took part in the contest. Carolyn Johnson, a food writer from Canada, was one of the participants. She said, "I'm inclined toward the taste of tteok. I used to eat it all the time when I first moved here."
At the exhibition, you could see traditional tteok dishes from all over the nation and "fusion" tteok with chocolate, strawberry syrup, and even fresh cream. Some were delicately carved into roses and some were stuffed with gimchi. New ways of keeping the best flavor of tteok, such as a new style of packaging, were also introduced at the exhibition.
According to the exhibit director, many foreigners and Koreans were stunned by the new look of the traditional food, and many now want to learn how to make it. Tteok may prove to be the key to focusing world attention on Korean cuisine. "Tteok is about sharing," one participant said. He added that he looked forward to the day when tteok becomes like "Korea's donuts" to the rest of the world. (261 words)