Gallery of Rice Cakes from Seoul's 7th International Tteok Fair
If you think of rice cakes as only being round or block-shaped, you're...right about most of them. But at the 7th International Tteok Fair in Seoul, South Korea, there were more! So many more! For the rice cake competition, contestants made elaborate dishes that, unfortunately, only the judges could eat, but they provided plenty of eye-candy for the rest of us. Since there were too many for me to include in my overview of the fair, I separated my favorites into this gallery.
Many of the tteok dishes were make to look like other things. This South Korean flag, for one.
And colorful lollipops.
A few Lilliputian crepes.
Little vegetable rolls that reminded me of nubby uncut kimbap.
And there were dishes made to look like living things, such as these pandas, bunnies, and penguins.
Little Red Riding Hood, or perhaps some other random young girl wearing a hooded red cap.
Winnie the Pooh!
Other yellow bears that are not Winnie the Pooh!
Little cakes were also popular.
As were big cakes. There were ones that looked like typical American-style layered cakes.
Along with plenty of multi-tired cakes.
And super multi-tired.
On the other end of the multi-tired tteok cake spectrum, dainty flowers made multiple appearances.
A lovely heart-shaped bed of rice-based flowers.
Photograph by Soo Hyang Choi
The dainty flower them was featured in one of the grand prize winning dishes (which I unfortunately didn't get a photo of) by Rie Tamaoka, a Japanese woman who studies at the Institute of Traditional Korean Food.
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12 Comments:
I never thought I'd coo over a rice cake! How do you make them - could you use glutinous rice flour? I am wondering if these might be a cute (and perhaps less expensive) alternative to marzipan ... but maybe they're much more work intensive?
KarynMC at 8:16AM on 05/19/09
I want recipes Robyn. I think next I want to see Adam go to an italian pizza festival. I want recipes from that too.
JerzeeTomato at 9:52AM on 05/19/09
@KarynMC: You can use glutinous rice flour, but..I've never actually make any tteok before, so that's where my knowledge ends. I found this tutorial video if that helps!
@JerzeeTomato: I have a Korean cookbook at home that I got from the Institute of Traditional Korean food; I'll see if I can find a recipe!
roboppy at 10:18AM on 05/19/09
I love me some good tteok but I think I prefer it in the traditional shapes. I mean, how mad would you be if you thought you were getting a slice of fluffy cake and it turned out to be rice cake?
Loving your Korea posts and pictures; can't wait to see more. Hope there's a soju-fueled night of debauchery in there somewhere!
leeber at 11:14AM on 05/19/09
Sorry, but this has kind of been driving me nuts when I've seen it in your posts about this fair. Tteok is an older spelling, before the revised romanization system that Korea now uses was put into use. The way the word is spelled these days is Ddeok, or even Ddokk.
driftingfocus at 11:33AM on 05/19/09
@leeber: I'm afraid there was no soju-fueld night...but there was a night with a bunch of drunken Canadians. at an Uzbek restasurant. Which you will not read about on SE. ;)
@driftingfocus: I used the "tteok" spelling because that's what they used at the fair...or rather, that's what the Institute of Traditional Korean Food uses. I'll ask them if they've thought about changing it. Is this an accurate guide to the Romanization of Korean?
roboppy at 11:41AM on 05/19/09
Sometimes the more traditional organizations in Korea use the "old fashioned" spellings, due to their association with "traditional Korea". That's what I assume is the case there.
That's a relatively accurate guide, yes. When the revised romanization was put into place, it changed the spelling of most things in Korea. Where I live in Korea, Jindo, used to be Chindo. Daegu was Taegu. Gwangju was Kwangju. Generally, Ts became Ds, Ch became J, Kw became G, among many other changes, including vowels. I confirmed the Ddeok spelling with some of my Korean co-workers today who say that yes, Ddeok is how it should be spelled these days. 떡 is how the word is written in Korean. That translates to "ddeog", but under the revised romanization, words that traditionally have the G symbol at the end of a word had the sound changed to a K. So, for instance, a city nearby me used to be written "Mogpo", but it's now written "Mokpo", despite the fact that the pronunciation hasn't changed.
Sorry if that's all confusing!
driftingfocus at 11:52AM on 05/19/09
@driftingfocus: I don't think there's any way that could not be confusing...thanks for trying to explain! For consistency's sake I'm going to stick with tteok, but I'll let you know when I hear back from the Institute.
roboppy at 12:21PM on 05/19/09
yeah, every time i've seen it it's been spelled ddukk.
arobotar at 12:26PM on 05/19/09
@roboppy: Believe me, it's confusing here, especially since you sometimes run across signs that still use the old system. On the island I live on, half the signs are in the old system, half are in the new system. It's hilarious.
I think you *should* stick with your spelling for now for consistency, as you said, but I was just more trying to better inform you. :)
driftingfocus at 12:47PM on 05/19/09
Heya, It's what Dr. Yoon at the Institute of Traditional Korean Food wanted, so I stuck with it. I like the look of tteok more than ddeok. But hey, check out Robyn's pics! They are awesome.
Seouleats at 12:48PM on 05/19/09
@driftingfocus - 떡 translates to dduk with a k sound at the end, not g.
I prefer dduk as the spelling. It just makes more sense.
bionicgrrrl at 1:27PM on 05/19/09