Korean Job Discussion Forums

[the eye]

Standing at the bus stop today, next to an apartuh playground, i was entertained by someone's gramdmother picking weeds next to the fence and around the trees. She put them in a plastic bag, and i ssume they will be in the chigae later.
These are also the same trees, and fence, that get pissed on, horked on, and occasionally vomitted on by residents and passersby.

She picked em so fast that i couldn't exactly see which ones were the delicious variety and which ones were left to be pissed on some more.


Then, a few meters down is a street veggie market with tons of produce laying in the wake of heavy traffic exhaust, only to be packed up at night and brought back the next day.

ew. it makes me wonder if there is anywhere in this country i can buy untainted produce.

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is all fine as long as you don't come on next week romaticizing hunter-gatherers. The cognitive dissonance would be too much.

[redlightorchestra]

She was probably picking mugwart. It is rediculously cheap in the store, but everyone wants to pick it.

It is delicious in that green ricecake mmmm.

[seoulkitchen]

Mugwort soaked in soju makes a poor man's Absinth.
Boiled in water, it makes a pretty good sleep aid.
But use the stems, that's where most of the 'medincinal' properties are.

[weatherman]

leave the old lady alone. You aren't going to die if it is in your soup that evening. Respect her for who she is........

[Ya-ta Boy]

For the last couple of hundred thousand years the women of the clan have gone out picking weeds for the family soup pot. There is something timeless in that knowledge and tradition that 'grabs' me. The last vestige of it in my family was my granny picking dandelions and eating them. I wish I knew what wild plants are edible. I don't know why I wish I knew, but I do.

[mack the knife]

Dozens of Koreans have been busted and fined for picking wild ginseng in national parks in the States. They didn't realize that we actually have laws and people actually enforce them.

[shortskirt_longjacket]

The produce at Wal-Mart is pretty good. Is there one near you?

[Cedar]

The weed-picking grandma is just evidence of how fast this country has changed. When she was young...

And, Koreans are generally very good about washing such "wild harvested" stuff... so I figure, she gets something with exhaust and lugee (sp) on it, but washes it, whereas at Emart you can get a gorgeous veggie that was grown with pounds of chemicals... and I'll bet those weeds get a more serious washing than the veggie from Emart.

I think until you are going to grandma's house for dinner and there are stringy green things in the chigae it really shouldn't be something worth mentioning...