Korean Sayings: Chicken Instead of Pheasant

Every New Year’s Day (설날), Koreans make tteokguk (rice cake soup) to celebrate the upcoming year. Eating tteokguk has a special meaning, one that resembles the ceremony of blowing out candles on one’s birthday. Koreans “believe” that only after one eats tteokguk is he or she able to welcome the New Year and grow a year older. This is why there is always tteokguk whenever friends, family or guests visit a Korean household on New Year’s Day.

In the old days, people used to cook tteokguk with pheasant meat. Pheasant not only had a special flavor, but it was considered an auspicious bird that would bring good events for the New Year. People nicknamed pheasant the “Sky Bird,” the messenger of the sky, and they would tie its feathers on farming tools. However, the main problem was that pheasants were difficult to procure, as it was respected as a sacred bird. Therefore, people in average households started to use chicken meat instead, which was not only cheaper, but also as tasty as the pheasant. Since then, chicken has been widely used in tteokguk, which is a valuable tradition still followed every New Year’s Day. No wonder the proverb “chicken instead of pheasant” has secured its place as one of the most useful sayings for Korean people.

Unfortunately, the writer cannot rise from the paper and enrich the hungry reader with this warm, delicious soup. Instead, she has the recipe instructions at hand for readers to try. The materials needed are: a chicken, special rice cakes used to make tteokguk, onions and spring onions, soy sauce, garlic and roasted laver (or “kim” in Korean).

First, peel the chicken and boil it with garlic, onions and 2.5 liters of water in a pot. When the chicken is well done (after about 20-30 minutes), scoop the chicken out (do not throw away the broth) and let it cool down. Use plastic gloves to tear the meat into bite-size chunks. Scoop the garlic, onions and chicken fat from the broth, and place in the rice cakes. When the rice cakes are well done, add soy sauce and salt. Then put in a nicely chopped spring onion and the chicken meat and let the broth boil a little bit. For a final touch, put the broth in a decorative bowl and rip the roasted laver, adding it on top of the broth.

One spoon of tteokguk on a cold winter day might make people cry. In the current days of fast foods and industrialized products, it is always a good idea to turn back time and eat something traditional and steamy that will warm you just the way tteokguk does.