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| Daekwang Mill workers slice garaetteok (long tube-shaped rice cake) with a machine in Nakwon-dong, Downtown Seoul, Feb. 12. / Korea Times photo by Nam Hyun-woo |
By Baek Byung-yeul, Nam Hyun-woo
On the Lunar New Year, or Seollal, Thursday, Koreans eat "tteokguk," a beef broth-based soup filled with sliced "garaetteok" (long tube-shaped rice cake).
Eating tteokguk celebrates the New Year and one is regarded as turning a year older by eating the soup.
Other than tteokguk, the demand for tteok, or chewy rice cake, soars around Seollal because Koreans usually give distant family members tteok as a gift on traditional holidays.
And the usually slow tteok stores in Nakwon-dong in Jongno, downtown Seoul, are resuscitated at this time.
The area, sandwiched between the tourist magnets of Insa-dong and Pagoda Park, is reminiscent of the underdeveloped Korea of the 1980s.
Nakwon-dong is often called "the Mecca of tteok" because of its maze of alleys flanked by tteok stores. One store, Jongro Ricecake, which has been around for more than 100 years, is about 300 meters west of the Nakwon Instrument Arcade.
"You can say a store is booming when there's a long queue," said Lee Jeong-suk, a manager and mother of owner Kim Yong-hwan. "This is not that good."
Though Lee, who is in her 60s, was complaining, the 65-square-meter store was crowded with six employees packing tteok and customers looking into garaetteok and colorful packages for gifts when The Korea Times visited.
Lee's store is not the only old tteok store in Nakwon-dong. Just across the street there is another famous one, Nakwon Tteokjib (Nakwon Tteok Store). Established in 1920, it has served Cheong Wa Dae's tteok orders for the past 60 years. Owner Lee Kwang-soon's can remember the birthdays of former presidents and their favorite tteok.
Tteok is made by pounding glutinous rice flour with a large, heavy, wooden hammer. This is called "Tteokmaechigi" and is one of the folk customs that can be observed in traditional villages on Seollal. But many stores now use machines to help make tteok because of increased demand.
Mills have also introduced machines to survive, including the Daekwang Mill, which is in a small alley next to the Nakwon Arcade.
Six employees were busy making and slicing garaetteok when The Korea Times visited. Usually, they only make garaetteok in the early morning, but as demand soars before Seollal, the mill was still in action in the afternoon.
The workers said that one "mal" (about 8 kilograms) of rice is used to make about 30 50-centimeter-long garaetteoks, weighing 12 to 13 kilograms. One mal of garaetteok sells for 20,000 to 30,000 won. Jongro Ricecake also receives garaetteok from here.
"We have been here for 20 years," said an employee who did not give her name. "There were many old mills around here, but they are all gone and we are the only now."
Tteok stores and mills have been disappearing as the national consumption of rice decreases. According to Statistics Korea, per capita rice consumption a day has been plummeting since 1980 and marked a record low 178.2 grams last year.
The trend has affected Nakwon-dong tteok stores and there are now only about 10 mom-and-pop stores in the area. Adding to this, large conglomerates have launched franchise tteok stores.
While the market has become tough for the small shop owners, they still pin their hopes on the customers who recognize the value of their tteok made with devotion and tradition.
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