Mmm, pretty rice cakes. Photograph from the Institute of Traditional Korean Food. When I was little, the term rice cake meant fat, round, mostly flavorless disks of puffed rice that I thought people only ate if they were on a diet. At some point this image left my mental food dictionary, and now rice cakes can only mean the soft, squidgy Asian variety made of pounded glutinous rice transformed into sweet and savory dishes. Growing up in a Chinese family with an affinity for Japanese cuisine, I've tried a variety of Chinese and Japanese rice cakes, but Korean rice cakes—in particular the sweet varieties—have been off my radar until now. In Korea, different kinds of rice cakes, or tteok...
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