By Claire Oh, with contributions from Tania Kim
“I mean, it’s all about how you wrap things up, isn’t it?” Tania remarks.
Kimbap is a Korean street food made from cooked rice, sheets of roasted seaweed, and a range of fillings from honey glazed roasted pork to random leftovers lying around in the fridge. But at its core, what is considered essential for a kimbap is just a sheet of seaweed – ‘kim’ – and rice – ‘bap’. Served in small slices, kimbap is the epitome of eat-as-you-go; just imagine – people in the streets of Seoul power walking with a bar of kimbap as their lifeline.
“Sad life of a corporate slave, soon to be me.” Tania adds as she puts down the dish on the table.
Tania’s version is a bit mushed, but still looks edible to a uni student standard. Eating means taking a short break from conversations. We rest our plates on stacked up bill envelopes and applications to be finished over the weekend.
New year’s resolutions is our chosen topic for the day. We talk in hopes and aspirations, gratitudes and regrets. Giving names to emotions and accepting them. Saying yes and filling the rest of the year with better memories.
“Probably our last homemade kimbap in this flat” Tania says.
There goes her go-to line of the year. As emotional as it is, everything she does could potentially become “the last xx as a uni student” – last Christmas as a uni student, last house party, last kimbap….
But back to the food. A note from my dear flatmate Tania to the readers: rolling kimbap is an art in itself. Some use dedicated tools for perfection, but most of the time it’s just you and the ingredients. Inch by inch, pulling the fillings inside to secure, and pushing the roll forward so that the surface remains clean without creases.
Whatever the fillings are, the roll has to come to a full circle.
Thanks for the meal!
Recipe: SPAM kimbap, for a single roll
- Place a sheet of kim (seaweed paper), ideally roasted slightly. Mix a bowl of cooked rice with a splash of sesame oil and sprinkle of salt, and evenly spread out on the kim.
- Place ½ can of roasted SPAM, one strip of danmuji (yellow pickled radish) or any pickles as an alternative, and some veggies of your choice (ideally cooked and mushy).
- Roll the kim over the fillings.
