Miyuk Gook- Seaweed Soup- The Birthday Soup Background Story

Whew, with hectic work schedule, daylight savings time starting, and desire (and only desire) to start working out again...whew..hope everyone still remembers our blog...sigh...I promise...I'll be better!

Miyuk Gook, Seaweed Soup, is known as the Birthday soup. Just like birthday cakes, it's a ritual most Koreans would follow. One would ask the birthday person if he/she ate Miyuk Gook that day.

Miyuk SoupSome actually skip a birthday cake, but still eat Miyuk Gook and the other way around...OR BOTH!

Recently it was my friend's, Gwen (Hi, Gwen!), Birthday. We happened to talk about Miyuk Gook and started to wonder about why Koreans actually eat Miyuk Gook. Why Miyuk Good for birthdays???

I guess I was very ignorant about it till now. So thanks to Gwen, I researched and is as follows:

Miyuk Gook is a birthday soup but also given to post-partum mothers who just had a child.  This is where it was all connected. So let me explain about the new moms first.

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Chuseok-The Korean Thanksgiving

It's that time of the year for Koreans. Chuseok is Korean Thanksgiving which we celebrate by lunar calendar. This year is this Sunday, September 14, 2008.

Chuseok is considered as one of the widely celebrated Korean holiday. Just like US Thanksgiving, most people go back to their hometown to spend time with their families. Even immigrants all over different countries gather around with family and friends to celebrate wherever they are.

The signature Chuseok dessert is called "SongPyeon/SongPyun," a crescent shaped rice cake stuffed with various goods like sweet sesame seeds, black bean paste, or mung bean paste. It is made like dumplings first and steamed in the pot with layers of pine needles for the subtle pine aroma.Songpyeon rice cakeWhen I was in Korea, our family would gather around on the floor and made SongPyeon together. We would make some in different shapes to mark our own SongPyeon. It was a tradition that helped everyone to get together and have a good family time. So Songpyeon cannot be overlooked during Chuseok eventhough we might just buy them now.

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