: Naengmyeon or What else?

 

Now, it’s getting hotter and hotter and we are looking for something cold to eat and drink. This time was the first time for me to eat Naengmyeon in 2023. Naengmyeon (cold noodle) is a food that is mainly eaten in Korean and made with rolling noodles mostly made of buckwheat in cold broth with hard-boiled egg, pork, pickled radish and sometimes with Korean pear. Of course, I did not think much of this food because it is, more often than not served as a desert after having meaty main dishes. I bet you may always find out this food as a choice in Bulgogi and spareribs restaurants. Although it comes to you with clear broth, you are given bottles of vinegar and mustard thus you can add both of or one of them. I usually only add mustard to my naengmyeon to enjoy a kind of spicy taste on the palate.

 

When discussing the type of naengmyeon, it should be considered that the food called naengmyeon in the first place has nothing to do with specific recipe, but rather a common name for any "cold noodles." In other words, there is no formal definition of “real naengmyeon" with authority. Consequently, there are varieties of this type of noodle involving development of various ingredients with different broths.

 

Some people used term “cold buckwheat noodle” instead of naengmyeon for translation. However, I think it is not quite reasonable to call these noodles buckwheat noodles because there are so many different foods made with buckwheat noodles (For instance, Makguksu).

 

Spicy bibim naengmyeon, which is spread around Dongdaemun area of Seoul, is the most representative Seoul-style naengmyeon, but I do not really like it. Mulnaengmyeon using sweet and sour broth is also part of the Seoul-style naengmyeon. In fact, Pyongyang naengmyeon is so bland that it tastes like water, and it is also argued by many food writers that the naengmyeon restaurants run by North Korean defectors make blander noodle than the well-known Pyongyang naengmyeon restaurants using Seoul style recipe.

 

In North Korea, where cold noodles originated, all common cold noodles are just called noodles. Currently, even in North Korea, only Pyongyang naengmyeon, the name of Pyongyang-style noodles, is referred to as "naengmyeon." The rest of the cold noodles are called noodles. Pyongyang-style bibim noodles are bibim noodles. In the north, naengmyeon is called just noodle because the most commonly eaten noodle form in Pyeongan-do and Hwanghae-do has long been naengmyeon.

In North Korea, warm noodles such as banquet noodles and kalguksu, which are usually eaten in the south, are collectively called hot noodles. In particular, it is called Nongma Noodles when referring to starch. Nongma' is a North Korean dialect of starch, and in North Korea, Nongma is the standard language. In fact, in the Daegu area, banquet noodles are served cold with ice in the summer, so it is far from warm noodles.

In summary, there are no textbook definitions of various noodles currently served in two-Koreas, but as long as they are delicious, we may not be unhappy about it.