Traditional Korean Foods: The Combination of Tteokbokki & Pizza!!!

2011102868 태성아 Sung-A Tae

Everyone in Korea knows Tteokbokki, also called as Fried Rice Cake, which is sold everywhere by the road, and the pizza which became really well-known by the Korean. However, how many people know its history?

First, let’s talk about Tteokbokki. In fact, Tteokbokki was one menu of the meal for the kong in

Korea

. Well, it was not in the form we see now in the past, though. At that time, Tteokbokki was a really simple kind of food. People put only soy sauce on rice cake, and this was the first form of Ttekbokki.

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In 1953, there exists an old woman who was selling Tteokbokki in a open space outside of KuangHee Door. This normal person was the first one who began to sell Tteokbokki in the form at present.

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Let’s talk about the next one, pizza. This is not the one from Korea, but it is really well-known through Korean. The same as Tteokbokki, pizza also has its hometown, Italy. In Italy, there is a city named Pisa, with a tower called the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It is said that this place born pizza.

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At the first it was only formed as bread with some vegetables such as onions. Since 18^th century, some tomatoes were added and the bread became pizza, and the word was first made at that time. Then some other materials were added, like cheese, some kinds of oil and so on.

From 19^th century, meat, garlic and various kinds of cheese were used to make a pizza. Finally, it began to attract people and gradually became the one we know.

Here comes a question: Why were Tteokbokki and pizza, one from Korea in Asia and one from Italy in Europe, put together?

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That is because there were combined together and a new menu is born nowadays. It is named Pizza-Tteokbokki. In this way, two totally different culture are connected by there own food. Tteokbokki, one of the traditional food in

Korea

, is gradually going into the world and is becoming globalized.