A Korean saying goes: “There’s so much food that the legs of the table will collapse.” With the pileup of dishes before me at Dokcheon Sikdang, a restaurant full of large fish tanks and unfussy, cozy private rooms in the southwestern Korean port city of Mokpo, I started to worry that this might actually come true. A type of seaweed called tot, which looked like a hairy spider, had a surprisingly subtle taste. A raw, long-legged octopus dish melted velvet-smooth in my mouth. When I commented on how delicious it was, my dining companion, Byeong Ju Kim, former director of the regional tourism board of Jeollanam-do, remarked, “Yesterday, those fellows were in the mud.”
Just as Italians say that you haven’t eaten real Italian food until you’ve gone to Sicily, Koreans will tell you that for the best Korean food, you must visit South Jeolla Province, or Jeollanam-do, a place of dramatic ria coastlines, green tea fields, undulating silvery beaches, and more than a thousand islands, a number of which make up Dadohaehaesang National Park. Many associate Korean cuisine with spicy kimchi and savory meat and barbecue dishes, but Jeollanam-do cuisine is more delicate, complex, fresher, its dishes rich with gifts from the sea. Some told me that Jeollanam-do’s unique food culture resulted from the task of feeding the political exiles with expensive tastes sent here during the 16th century; others that it is the by-product of the region’s historical isolation. Tourism has come to southern Jeollanam-do only recently, and the slow pace of life and community-oriented spirit that defined Korea a half century ago remain intact, even though the region is only a three-hour ride south of Seoul on the high-speed train.
The day I arrived in Mokpo was a day of memory. The city was buzzing with parades and speeches commemorating the anniversary of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a large-scale civil movement against the martial-law government, which began with peaceful protests in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province’s largest city, spiraled throughout Jeollanam-do, then was brutally suppressed. Seoul, where more than half the nation’s population of 51.3 million people lives, rushes heedlessly toward the future, razing its buildings and embracing international architecture, food, and culture, but southern Jeollanam-do works hard to preserve its past. In 2018, Mokpo was one of three relatively unknown cities designated by the South Korean government for the significant role it played in the country’s modern history. Its downtown is a “roofless museum,” a collection of historic streets and quaint buildings preserved from the Japanese colonial period, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. In the dry heat of the afternoon I wandered through the former Japanese consulate, the customs building, and innumerable Japanese two-story homes called jeoksan gaok, which means “the enemy’s house.”
It was difficult to associate Mokpo with a city sealed off by troops as I gazed at the shimmering image of the islands just offshore or the verdant foliage of nearby Mount Yudal, which appeared ripped from an Henri Rousseau jungle painting. I took a two-mile-long glass-bottom cable-car ride and hiked to the top of the mountain to look down at Mokpo’s rugged coastline and the glittering azure archipelago beyond. Dadohaehaesang National Park’s limestone cliffs, emerald waters, and hidden coves and caves would not have looked out of place in Southeast Asia. My guide, Yoo, attributed the park’s unspoiled beauty to its isolation, but today many of its sparsely populated islands are easily reachable by daily ferries from Jindo Island or by yacht charter.
On Gwanmaedo, my favorite island, roads twist around the lapis lazuli of perfect sheltered bays, camellia trees, and beaches without a soul in sight except for the occasional goat keeping watch from its cliff. About 200 people live here, though the population increases tenfold in high season. The people who live in Jeollanam-do year-round tend to be less reserved and more likely to join your table for a drink than residents of Korea’s colder northern climes. On Gwanmaedo, my guide, Mr. Bak, suddenly asked if I’d like to try a locally brewed mugwort makgeolli. Intrigued, I agreed. Within minutes he arrived with three neighbors, two plastic bottles, and a large bowl of white kimchi in a chilled broth he’d lugged out of a resident’s house. A woman in baggy floral pants insisted on feeding me the sweet, cool kimchi with chopsticks, saying, “It’s absolutely delicious, and you can’t leave without trying it!” We didn’t know each other’s names, but she acted like she could be my aunt.
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