Like good university grads, our journey began with research. We found out from our director that the home-made candy is a traditional Korean treat called Joke Ja. That being the extent of the research portion of our project, we headed out for some work in the field.
While Shayne busied himself creating a photographic record of the experiment from a safe distance, I got more hands-on and approached the machine itself. I had to push aside a few students, but they happily complied, mesmerized that a teacher, and a waygook no less, was interested in their snack food.
(Me with the machine...and a bunch of kids who'll need to visit the dentist soon.)As you might be able to make out from the photo above, the candy machine consists of two red-hot elements and a series of candy moulds. What you can't see, and what I received assistance from the shopkeeper in using, is the sugar dispenser at the bottom of the machine. You insert 200 Won (about 20 cents), and a few tablespoons of fine sugar is dispensed into your waiting mini frying pan.
(This is the jar where they put the mini frying pans to cool after each use. I'm not quite sure why the water's black, but I'm choosing to believe that it's intentional and perfectly sanitary.)
Now, the help from the shopkeeper was welcome, but apparently I appeared completely incompetent, because as I began the next step of the process (melting the sugar above the mini stove top) an 8-year old girl took the mini frying pan and the popsicle stirring stick out of my hands to show me how it was supposed to be done. I wasn't too worried until I tried to get it back and she wouldn't let me. I had to put on my best "teacher's" voice until she relented.
(Stirring the melting sugar in the "correct" way.)
(A child mixing the 200 degree concoction. But protective parents, never fear: You can see the "hands off" sign on the cook top. I'm sure it's been effective in preventing burns.)After the sugar is completely melted you're supposed to mix in a pinch of an unknown white powder (I think it's flavouring). I was in the middle of doing this when I guess the shopkeeper felt I, once again, wasn't doing it properly, and she took the mini frying pan from me to complete the task herself. I didn't have a chance to protest as in the process a dollop of molten sugar flicked off the popsicle stick right onto my wrist. Luckily for me I was in Korea, and so the inevitable string of expletives went mostly unnoticed from the brace of children all around me. In fact they were too busy laughing at my misfortune to pay attention to what I was saying...Shayne included.
As you can see from the photo the Joke Ja seared off the first layer of skin. The only silver lining was that after a few minutes the last of my nerve endings died and I didn't feel any pain. I can't imagine what would happen if some 6 year-old kid accidentally poured the whole panful onto a friend or something.Anyways, while I was busy applying ice to my wound (gathered from a nearby ice cream cooler), some kid swooped in and stole my now finished Joke Ja! I don't know who this kid was, but they're obviously headed for a life of petty crime. I mean, stealing from the injured? What would Kohlberg say?
(Me wondering where the hell my Joke Ja went. Despite interrogation, the two little girls maintained the childhood code of silence.)So, with an eye to not receiving another second degree burn, I set about making another Joke Ja candy. I was now a practiced hand, and although the shopkeeper once again took it away from me to add the strange white powder and set it in the mould, I think I did a pretty good job.
(Look Ma! I'm making Joke Ja!)
Here I am holding the finished product. It's in the shape of some Korean cartoon character and actually tasted really good. It was kind of like peanut brittle without the peanuts. I can see now why the kids like it so much, but I can also see how eating too much of this stuff would make your teeth fall out. Well, all in the pursuit of knowledge.
Jo
3 comments:
I think my mother would sew my hands into my jacket so that I could navigate Korea without becoming severely disabled.
That being said - bring on the searing hot stoves, trapolines-o-death, and other korean scandals. Population control I say. Bet one of those kids would whoop a Canadian kid in a bare-knuckled bar fight.
It's true. Today little Sung Geun got into a fist fight with little Min Woo and gave him a bloody nose and a cut above his eye. Something about calling him "big head" or some such thing.
Jo
for some reasdon or other this is my third attempt to get in,what is going on? Anyway Jo you seem to be accident prone over there. Otherwise the candy looks good,know the kids over here would not get within ten feet of the hot stove,take care.
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