Lunchy Munchy

I love Korean food, and I've been lucky to experience almost all of it in 10 years in lurvely Daegu.  But I'm also fascinated by Korean food culture -- the tendency to eat together, a drinking culture where food is always consumed with alcohol, the (too?) noisy bustle of almost all Korean restaurants.

So this a is a roundabout way of getting to lunch culture in Norway, via Vox:

"'Norway doesn’t have a warm lunch tradition,' explains Andreas Viestad, food writer and host of the public television series New Scandinavian Cooking. With the exception of employees at some large companies that offer hot lunches, he adds, traditionally everyone from the lowest-level worker to upper management would eat their own individually wrapped, brought-from-home matpakke.

So what exactly is it? To borrow from the architect Louis Sullivan, matpakke’s form follows its function: The point of these open-faced sandwiches is to provide a quick, easy, somewhat nutritious lunch-time meal that provides sustenance without leaving you too full. They typically consist of two or three slices of bread, smeared lightly with butter, each topped with a single slice of cheese or meat, or perhaps a thin layer of jam, liver paste, or tubed caviar.

And that’s ... basically it."

Not having a "warm lunch tradition" jumped out at me, because Korea has got to be the Disney World of "warm lunches."  While I have lunch with my boss every Monday at any number of local restaurants, for the rest of the week I tend to do the "American thing" of bringing my lunch to work.  (Usually a sandwich and some fruit, and a can of coffee or some juice, or even some convenience store sushi, and maybe a cookie if I'm feeling like Kanye.)

My boss, Doctor Kim, thinks I'm insane for doing this.  No, really -- the expression on his face is one of pure disgust if he catches me eating lunch at my desk.

And he's right to do so, in a lot of ways.  I've mentioned before that South Korea is one of those rare countries where it's actually cheaper to eat at restaurants than it is to cook at home.  For the equivalent of five to six dollars (well, maybe seven to eight in Seoul) you can eat a huge, relatively "from scratch" meal that will last you most of the day.  Play your cards right, and you can find "self service" or "refill" places with unlimited rice, kimchi, and pickles if you're really trying to stretch your won.

The point being, there's no need for frugal, American-style bag lunches here because for the same cost as a sandwich and chips and a drink, you can sit down and eat a real meal -- and not just fast food, mind you.  (Strangely enough, a Burger King or McDonald's set menu order can run for more than a local mom-and-pop, non-chain joint.)

So anyways, the next time my boss catches me munching a sandwich at my desk I'll let him know about Norway, and how really my lunch is an extravagantly fancy feast compared to what our Nordic Cousins are having that day.

And beyond price, I think the main reason Koreans tend to savor a full hour's lunch at a sit-down restaurant is because many of them will be working until nine or ten p.m., while us lazy Americans are used to getting out of the office, Fred Flintstone style, at five or six.

(Seriously, if you ever live in Korea don't expect any business to get done between noon and one.  People will treat you like a crazy person.  Which you are, because dammit it's lunch time.)