Kids Love Squid

Posted by ZenKimchi in Korean Food 101 | 3 comments

The only thing I have ever had to ban in the classroom is dried squid, ojingeo오징어.

IT STINKS!!!

Actually, I occasionally enjoy dried squid. It matches well with beer. It tastes better than it smells, but OMG–it can truly reek. You can almost smell it in this instructional video.

It comes in different flavors. My favorites are barbecue and butter. If you go to see a movie, you can even get peanut butter flavored dried squid.This leads to one of my more surprising observations: in Korea, kids love squid.

They frequently snack on this, and it is marketed to kids next to the candies.

When I taught kindergarten, the schools had birthday parties each month for the students whose birthdays fell on that month. There were kids each month who would not touch cake. They couldn’t stand it. But all of the kids attacked an opened bag of dried squid.

Observe.

Like velociraptors on a holstein.

So the conclusion of my unscientific survey: kids love squid more than chocolate cake.

Joe McPherson is the founding editor of ZenKimchi. He is also dining editor for 10 Magazine and writes and consults for multiple publications. He is the only non-Korean judge for the Korean section of the Miele Guide--but don't ever call him a food critic.

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