Kimbap or Gimbap is such an institution in Korea that it if wasn’t for their obsession with Kimchi it could be their national dish.*

Kimbap was first described to me as a Korean sushi and I have since discovered it was the name the Koreans used for sushi after their government tried to remove Japanese cultural references from Korean life following Korean liberation from Japan in 1945.

Kimbap as I know it resembles a sushi roll. It is made, usually, with seaweed on the outside then rice and filled with a strip of egg, radish, carrot, ham and either crab of tuna. It is rolled using a sushi mat and sliced into bite size pieces.

Kimbap is everywhere in Korea, it is always made by one of the mothers for the teachers to eat on school trips, it is their favourite picnic food and also a quick take away option if they are on the move. It was therefore a unique experience to be one of around 40 foreigners who, as part of the festivities at the annual Uljin Snow Crab festival, had been invited to help make the worlds longest Kimbap.

Every year at the annual Uljin Snow Crab festival they attempt to beat their previous record for the worlds longest Kimbap. This year flanked by the experts, an equal number of ajummas, the inexperienced foreigners including Kat Emily and I, helped cobble together something that looked, and tasted like, kimbap. Not having a clue what were were doing we bumbled our way though, copying others who looked equally lost. At the end our efforts were rewarded as they declared our mammoth 80 meter long Kimbap the longest ever made. Yipee!

Once the kimbap making was over we were given a taster of our product served inside a crab shell..

Then being on an Adventure Korea tour, once we’d made our kimbap, we were whisked to the other side of the festival site for our next experience – releasing “a fish to wish on the sea”.

We clambered aboard a boat and were taken out into the harbour where we each picked up a scoop full of flat fish and were told to make a wish as we returned them to the water. Kat went first throwing her fish into the sea only to be told the impact of hitting the water had probably just killed them all!

Next it was off to a traditional Korean style outdoor restaurant, gazebo, hut type thing to sample the fresh snow crab.

In the tanks outside there were crabs of priced ranging from 8,000 won (about 5GBP) to 70,000 won (42GBP) – were assured we weren’t going to eat the 70,000 won ones!

The freshly steamed crabs arrived and everyone tucked in leaving the diarrhoea coloured juice than came out of the inside of the crab. Then the Adventure Korea tour operator, Seok-jin, appeared telling us it was delicious. If a Korean says something is delicious it usually means it is pretty disgusting and judging by the reactions of those who tried it, the diarrhoea juice was no exception!

After our feed we boarded the bus and began our journey to our accommodation a traditional Koren house in a traditional Korean village..

More to follow on the weekend shortly.

* Kimchi is a fermented dish made with seasoned vegetables and eaten with every meal – including breakfast! Most Korean households have a separate Kimchi fridge, most of the kids happily spend weekends at their grandmothers making Kimchi and so far I have only met one Koren who doesn’t like it. Even the kids gobble up the spicy dish.

* Posted by j150vsc on 27/04/2007.