Squid and the East Coast Catch

The East Sea, which lies between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, is a deep, cold water, and its coast is a narrow strip pressed between the Taebaek mountains and the shore. Along that strip, from Sokcho and Gangneung in Gangwon Province southward to Pohang and Ulleung Island, the fishing ports have long supplied the peninsula with squid, walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) and other cold-water fish. The cooking of this coast is shaped less by the rice plain than by the harbour and the drying rack.

The common squid of Korean kitchens, ojingeo (오징어), is the animal most closely tied to the East Sea in the popular mind, and it reaches the table in more forms than almost any other sea creature. It is cleaned, scored and stir-fried with gochujang, gochugaru and vegetables in ojingeo bokkeum, or cut into rings and set into seafood pancakes and stews. The scoring matters in practice, since a lattice cut across the inner surface lets the body curl as it cooks and carry the sauce, and the cook must stop the heat early, because squid passes within moments from tender to rubbery. The coast also preserves its catch. Squid is split, hung and dried in the sea wind to make marreun ojingeo, which is then torn and eaten as a snack, or softened and seasoned with gochujang, soy sauce and sugar for ojingeochae-muchim, a banchan (반찬) that keeps well and travels well. Drying concentrates the sweetness of the flesh and gives it a chew that fresh squid does not have, and the technique belongs to the same logic as the dried pollock of the same shore, which the Korean kitchen uses as dried strips for soup, including a clear broth with radish. Fresh squid is eaten raw in the port towns, sliced thin as hoe (회) and dipped in a sauce of gochujang and vinegar, and it is also stuffed. Ojingeo sundae, in which the cleaned body is filled with a mixture of minced squid, vegetables and glutinous rice or noodles, then steamed and sliced into rounds, is a dish of the Gangwon coast and shows how a lean catch was stretched into a meal for a household. The Korean chilli (Capsicum annuum), brought to the peninsula in the sixteenth century, gave the coast its red seasoning, and the squid dishes that rely on it are therefore later in form than the plain drying and salting that preceded them. The East Sea fishery is a working one, with boats that go out at night under bright lamps to draw the squid to the surface, and the catch landed at dawn at the harbour markets. The cooking that follows is direct. It asks for a fresh animal, a quick heat or a long dry, and a seasoning that supports rather than hides the flesh, and it is the clearest expression on the peninsula of a cuisine built on cold, clean water.

The flavour of East Sea squid is clean, sweet and faintly mineral, and the Korean kitchen sets it against the heat of gochugaru and gochujang, the salt of soy sauce and the sharpness of vinegar. Dried squid gives a deeper, savoury sweetness and a firm chew, while the fresh animal, cooked briefly, stays tender and yields a light, briny juice that the sauce carries.