00:00:00 Jangkalguksu 00:14:51 Kimchi Heollaengi noodles 00:30:00 Chon noodles 00:44:31 Maesaengi noodles 00:59:51 Mackerel kalguksu A warm bowl that warms your body that comes to mind on a cold day. Food that always accompanies people's busy daily lives and fills their bellies. That's noodles. During the Joseon Dynasty, noodles were a high-class food that only the nobles could eat, and they were eaten on special days like weddings to symbolize longevity. Our lives and history are alive and breathing, and warm feelings remain in noodles. Let's feel that warm feeling that warms our body and mind in the cold winter. Part 1. In the middle of winter, we go to Jeongseon Jangkalguksu “The water that flows over there is frozen, Gangwon-do is Gangwon-do” In the middle of a cold winter, even the flowing water is frozen in Jeongseon, Gangwon-do. A llama that travels the mountains and the sea and sings about nature sets off on a journey to a place where time seems to have stopped. In the village just before, located deep in a rugged mountain valley, it is not easy to see people due to the unusually cold weather. Grandma Kim Seon-wol (73) appears like Santa Claus in the village where there was no one. The llama follows the grandmother who is going to the village mill. It is a 100-year-old treadle mill that creaks and creaks. However, Grandma Kim Seon-wol’s house boasts an even longer history, 150 years. The noodles here taste different, and the secret is soybean powder! Since ancient times, when soybean powder is added, it is less bubbling and the taste is more savory, so it is mixed with wheat flour and kneaded. The broth is not the typical kelp broth, but makjang. Jangkalguksu is the icing on the cake when eaten with crunchy Gangwon-do mustard kimchi! This is the taste of Gangwon-do. Tadpole noodles “This is such a delicious taste” While walking, Rama breathed in the cold but clear and clean air of Jeongseon. The next place he stopped by was Unchiri Community Center. The residents gather every day for lunch and dinner. Today’s menu is tadpole noodles. In the old days when the land was barren and rice was hard to come by, people in Gangwon-do ate corn and buckwheat instead of rice. No wonder there was an old saying that girls got married after eating a single mal of rice. Corn flour ground in a millstone was boiled and pressed in a press to produce noodles that snapped off one by one. They were named tadpole noodles because they resembled tadpoles. What would be Lama’s reaction when he tried tadpole noodles? We set out to find the special taste of Gangwon-do created by the hassle of ‘doing things the old way.’ Part 2. One bowl, the taste of the sea, Maesangi noodles “Let’s go dig for honey~” Paran (25) came from Tajikistan to study Korean language and culture. In her 4th year of living in Korea, she goes on a trip to Geumgang Island in Goheung, Jeollanam-do. Paran, who first saw the sea in Korea, was amazed by the changing appearance of the sea due to the high and low tides. Paran met Grandma Gongsangsim (70) who was digging oysters in the tidal flats. The grandmother said she had no time to rest from her work at the sea in the winter. She and her husband, Grandpa Hwang Yeong-sik (74), are a famous lovebird couple in the village. The grandfather makes hotteok by hand for his wife who suffered from the cold. It was the peak season for the harvest of seaweed in Geumgangdo during the cold winter. Seaweed, which was considered a waste because it prevented the growth of seaweed, became a special dish for people living along the coast who boiled it in soup. Thanks to seaweed, the couple did not know that it was cold even in the middle of winter. However, they decided to give up seaweed farming this winter. It was due to the health of the husband who collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage eight years ago. The grandmother who returned from the sea stir-fries clams with oysters to make clam kalguksu. It is a special nutritious food for her husband. As the eldest daughter-in-law, she was once responsible for the meals of 14 family members, and her hands naturally grew bigger. In her clam kalguksu, there is much more clam than noodles. What does clam kalguksu, filled with the grandmother's sincerity and love, taste like? Part 3. Dongchimi noodles, hot or cold “I like the ones I came here with my grandfather the best” Imsil Sanmak Village in Jeollabuk-do, which is quite a hike past the Seomjin River Dam. In this very small village with only about 10 households, three grandmothers, Kim Soon-deok, Yoo Si-hyeon, and Kim Ju-myeon, have arrived! These days, every household has an oil boiler, but the grandmothers have become accustomed to living in the mountains without running water or cars, and saving has become a habit. Today, they go up to the mountain to find firewood to light the stove. The grandmothers, who are hungry after chopping wood, decide to make noodles for a meal. Grandmother Kim Soon-deok has been pickling dongchimi in a jar buried in the ground since her father-in-law’s time. She makes sure to make dongchimi every kimchi-making season and bury it in the ground. She says that there is no side dish better than dongchimi in the cold winter. The grandmother says that the dongchimi she makes is the best, even better than the one her daughter-in-law makes. How would dongchimi noodles with floating ice cubes taste this winter? Kimchi Heulraengi Guksu “Even if you can’t beat people, you can beat your own.” A village surrounded by Palbongsan Mountain in Hongcheon, Gangwon-do. Lee Su-yeon (54) and Eom Sun-ja (58) are a couple with a young age gap who never stop joking around, even while clearing the snow piled up on the roadside. The couple loves nature and moved to the countryside six years ago. The husband, who is good at making anything, built the octagonal pavilion, Sarangchae, and Kkotcha Cafe using wood collected from the mountain. The wife, who likes old things, made meju with soybeans she grew herself and still insists on the old way of burying kimchi in the ground. The wife, whose hometown is Cheorwon, says that she always misses her hometown on snowy days when the roads are blocked. It is kimchi heulraengi guksu made by cutting well-ripened kimchi into thin strips and boiling them. The husband, who is kind to others but strict to her, sometimes bickers with her, but she can’t help but feel free to enjoy the hot and spicy kimchi heulraengi guksu. It contains gratitude towards her husband who allowed her to live comfortably while appreciating nature. Isn't this what it's like for a couple to live in the countryside? Part 4. When you meet in Miryang, try village noodles + seonji noodles. "It's cheap and delicious in the countryside," "Long~~don't stop~~all the way!" Gyeongsang-do, the largest noodle-consuming region in our country, is where Paran (25), who came from Tajikistan, took a train to Miryang, Gyeongsangnam-do this time. Manyeo Temple, one of Miryang's representative temples, is always crowded with people who want to make wishes for the new year. What did Paran wish for this year? No matter where you go in the country, there is a 5-day market, and the restaurant you will definitely find at any 5-day market is a noodle restaurant. The price is also very cheap at 3,000-4,000 won. There is a noodle shop with a tent that only blocks the wind at Samnangjin Market, and it has been around for over 30 years. On market days, the owner, grandmother Yoo Pil-yeon (80), comes out at 4 a.m. to boil broth and noodles. She says she will do her best to serve the customers who still come. If there is one rule that grandmother has for noodles, it is that they must be warm at all times. Thinking of the common people who came out to the market at dawn and shivering from the cold, she warms the noodles in hot water several times. The menu that Paran chose was Seonji noodles. What do the Seonji noodles, which are popular among the hungry and easy-on-the-spot common people, taste like? What she found at the intersection on the way down from Manwhasa Temple was a shabby country noodle shop. It was opened eight years ago by Kim Gyeong-yeol (60), a resident of the village, to provide a fresh start for the residents who farm. The outside isn’t much to look at, but the inside is full of customers. Half are tourists, half are locals. They say that if you slurp down the long noodles without breaking them, you will live a long life. Maybe that’s why the white-haired grandmother, who is now in her 90s, is still so energetic. What will the noodles filled with the owner’s warm heart taste like? Part 5. Mother’s Kalguksu, Turmeric Kalguksu “Yellow gold comes out of the fields” Jindo, Jeollanam-do, green all year round. Because of the leeks and bomdong, there was something that made the hands of the busy Jindo women even more restless in the winter: the gold that grows in the fields, turmeric. Turmeric and turmeric are the same plant, but they have different names depending on the part. Turmeric refers to the rhizome, and turmeric refers to the tuberous root like a potato. In the early 1990s, when turmeric was first introduced to Korea, grandmothers Park Hwang-rye, Kim Ok-ja, and Son Jeong-sim helped each other dig up turmeric from their fields. Now, everyone works in their own fields, but in the early days, turmeric seeds could not be bought even with money, so it was farming that only families did without anyone knowing. Unlike grandmothers in the city, the grandmothers say that their finger joints became thick from working in the fields and that their hands looked just like turmeric. They didn’t even realize that their plump, pretty hands had become bumpy from shaking off the heavy turmeric that was full of dirt. It was hard work, but turmeric was a filial piety crop that helped raise their children well. That’s why turmeric is gold to the grandmothers. Let’s meet turmeric kalguksu, which contains the golden life of a mother. Mackerel Kalguksu “I came to protect my mother” Homigot, Pohang, where the sun rises first in the Korean peninsula. There is a mother and son waiting for the sunrise, holding hands affectionately in the yard. The main characters are Seong Cheol-su (55) and grandmother Yang Bun-yeong (90). Cheol-su, the fifth of eight siblings, had been working in downtown Pohang, but he returned to his mother, leaving his wife in the city, because he was worried about his mother who lived alone. Cheol-su loves noodles so much that his mother joked, “If our Cheol-su brings three pairs of noodles, he will get married.” The rest of the family also likes them, so they earned the nickname “noodle family.” Cheol-su’s favorite noodle is mackerel kalguksu, which his mother often made for him since he was little. He realized how much care his mother put into making it by removing the mackerel bones and crushing the meat herself. On the day of New Year’s Day, he treats his mother to kalguksu, and tastes mackerel kalguksu, which is full of his son’s filial piety.