In early October, I took the family down to the Bupyeong Agricultural Market for a chance to save a bit of money at what basically amounts to Korea's version of a US Farmer's Market. In Korea this type of market is very large. In this particular case it consists of 2 giant warehouses: 1 for vegetable goods and 1 for fruit goods. Eggs are also available separately; more on that later.
Going along with the larger size, the markets here are open to the public but are really intended to be a wholesale market for restaurants and grocers to purchase their goods. So while the prices are very good, you also are often buying bulk. You could almost think of it as a Costco for just fruits and veggies.
In the vegetable market, most things are sold in large bags and boxes although you can get smaller bundles at several stalls (usually for almost the same price as a large bundle). Spinach, lettuce, cabbage and other leafy goods are sold in very large plastic bags. Typically these are big enough that when we buy one, we can split the goods and the costs with 4-5 other families and still have more than a family of 4 can eat in 2 weeks.
Other goods consist of bundles of carrots (short, stocky and fat here), celery, broccoli and various roots, shoots and twig type plants. These last items, the roots, shoots and twigs, tend to look like little bundles of kindling but sure enough, people eat them. They tend to be Bamboo (served steamed - tastes like soggy toothpicks), ginseng and lotus roots. There others I don't recognize and can't understand the Korean names yet. Anyway, we tend to avoid most of that.
In boxes, there are loads of sweet potatoes (very good), as well as other potato types similar to a US Idaho and the small round Irish red potatoes. There are also boxes of a giant variety of mushrooms and gourd veggies like squash and pumpkins. On this particular visit our big find was 2 Korean pumpkins big enough to carve for Halloween. This spared us getting a pumpkin on the black market (yes they have pumpkins on the black market here), smuggled off the army base and selling for 20,000 won (about $22) each. So for 10,000 won total we went away happy with 2 good sized fairly normal Jack-O-Lanterns to be.
The fruit market is, of course, full of all sorts of fruit: Apples, bananas, pineapples, strawberries all pretty much like we have at home but a bit plumper and juicier. On the less usual side we have Asian pears which are round and a bit bigger than a softball and we also have persimmons which look like squished old oranges. Speaking of oranges the big round Sunkist kind are here, but they take a back see to mandarin (or as they are known in Korea Juju) oranges. The Jeju oranges are very sweet and not at all bitter. Our kids eat them like candy and we actually have to watch carefully or they'll eat so many that getting to far from a bathroom can be a problem (yes this really happened - citrus fruit does have a laxative effect).
Finally, there are the egg men. The egg men for some reason are not allowed to sell their goods in the market. Instead you find them parked on the surrounding streets peddling their goods from the back of a truck. If it were not for the large signs it would almost feel like dealing in contraband...."Psstt...hey buddy, wanna buy some eggs?"
Anyway, like most things here, this is a unique and unusual experience. The pictures that follow tell the rest of the story.
Life in Korea: Korean Vegetable Market
The weekend we visited the market was during Kimchi making season so they had lots and lots of onions. Josh was less than enthused with this and made his best pirate expression at the prospect of taking home a bag... "Arrrgggg!"
Hankerin' for a hunk of wood? We got you covered. Doesn't Sarah look just ready to dig in and grab a nibble. Somehow, someway...she resisted.
From top left: Squash, Ginseng, Ginseng and dark mushrooms of some variety.
From bottom left: Beans, Lotus root, and a variety of clustery root things. Yum Yum.
Every imaginable kind of mushroom in every shape, size and color. Also in the background, cucumbers, peppers, and cauliflower.
Our egg man. You can buy sets of 2 trays, 3 trays or 5 trays. Each tray has 30 eggs. You can also choose from fertilized eggs or unfertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs are considered more healthy for you. We've been sticking to the unfertilized eggs.
Told you those pumpkins were Jack-O-Lanterns to be. Here they are completed (Hint: the pumpkins are the 2 in the middle, the other 2 are Sarah and Josh - we know it's hard to tell). Korean pumpkins are more yellow inside, lighter on the outside, with a slightly different odor and some type of perma-mud stuck to the outside bottom (actually a tougher rind on the bottom skin). Other than that..just like home.
