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Email  Eat Me  Cold Comfort  Cooking Up The Korean Equivalent of
Chicken Soup  Henry Hong  By Henry Hong | Posted 12/10/2008
When winter makes its sudden entrance and the first person I
know wakes up with that ominous throat-feels-weird sensation, I
know it's time to make what I prosaically call "Korean Sick
Person Soup." Which in turn reminds me of my middle school days
--not the heart-scarring, social-skill-dismantling bad trip of
middle school itself, but the summers I spent in the Motherland,
courtesy of my numerous wealthy aunts.  They bankrolled sundry
summer camps and tours aimed at cultivating my apparently
inadequate Koreanness, but honestly all I remember is the food.
One aunt's family operated a hospital in what was then a pretty
rural area and like many well-off Koreans back then employed a
lady to help with domestic responsibilities, or an "ajuma" (a
generic term that can refer to any middle-aged woman). And holy
crap could this wom