The sour kimchi that has been fermenting for a while is the best to make kimchijeon. Kimchijeon 김치전 includes kimchi! You cannot use fresh kimchi though.There are many different types of jeon, so we will look at some common ones that are eaten at Chuseok. Make it! Recipe for japchae from My Korean Kitchen, opens a new window.

If you are not a vegetarian or vegan, you can also add meat and egg to your japchae. You can try different vegetables depending on your tastes. The most common vegetables added to japchae are carrots, spinach, green onions, and red peppers. Japchae 잡채 is a dish made with sweet potato starch noodles, a variety of vegetable, and some mushrooms.

Make it! Recipe for Songpyeon from Kimchimari, opens a new window. Honey is mixed with the fillings to create a wonderful, slightly-sweet flavor. Some have beans, others ground sesame seeds or peanuts. Inside the Songpyeon are various fillings. They are steamed with pine needles, which creates a wonderful aroma. As the name suggests, pine needles are one of the key ingredients in the rice cakes. Songpyeon 송편 are special rice cakes that are made around Chuseok. Afterwards, the family visits the graves of their ancestors in their hometown and cleans up the grave to show respect, which is known as 성묘 (seong-myo). Afterwards, the paper with the names of the deceased relatives is burned and taken outside.Īfter bowing, the family takes some of the food off of the table to eat for breakfast. These are big bows where you put your forehead to the floor, which shows a lot of respect! This process is called 차례 (cha-lye). The family then bows twice in front of the table. Sometimes, photos of relatives that have passed away recently are displayed on the table, along with their names written on sheets of paper. The front row is for fruits and desserts.Ĭulture Fact: It is considered rude to stick chopsticks directly up in a bowl of rice because it looks like incense for the dead. After this comes dried fish and seasoned vegetable side dishes. Soups come after this, closer to the front. The next row has fried pancakes, meat, and fish. The utensils, glasses, and songpyeon rice cakes are placed at the back of the table, near the screen. There is generally an order to how the food is placed on the table, which can vary by family and region. Traditional foods that are prepared are fruits, fish, soup, rice cakes, noodles, ribs, and fried foods. On the morning of Chuseok, the family sets up a table with lots of food. Even the subway cars are empty! Chuseok Traditions It can feel very strange to walk down the streets of Seoul during Chuseok. If they do not live close by, this can mean a very long drive! Sometimes the traffic is so slow that people get out of their cars on the freeway to stretch their legs while they are still in the car lane! This is one of the only times of the year that Seoul is empty. Koreans travel to their hometowns during this holiday. The other less common name for the holiday is 한가위 (han-gah-wi). The Mid-Autumn Festival in Korea is call 추석 (choo-seok). In this Biblio Lotus, opens a new window blog series, we will introduce the history, traditions and fun facts of this festival in several Asian countries. However, people from other countries in Asia would also celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, for example, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian and Cambodian. A lot of people may have heard about it because of mooncakes or lanterns, which are some traditions of Chinese celebration. Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, is one of the most celebrated festivals in Asia. Mid-Autumn Festival-an Asian festival related to Thanksgiving

Cheonsuck festival midautumn korean