I came to Korea last year to teach English with the Fullbright program without knowing where I would be

living. All I knew was that I would not be in Seoul. Later I found out I was being placed in the southwestern city of Jeonju. After a quick Internet search I was elated to find that the Jeolla province where Jeonju is located has a reputation for delicious food. As the provincial capital, Jeonju is renown throughout Korea as having the most delectable food in the country and is credited with being the birthplace of bibimbap – one of the hallmark dishes of Korean cuisine. I felt like I had won the culinary lottery.

During my stay in Jeonju I lived with a homestay family, which allowed me to get home cooked,authenticKorean meals. I was surprised to learn that my homestay mom did her grocery shopping at Morenae Shijang, a traditional Korean market. Totally different from the well-organized, fluorescent supermarkets I was used to, the shijang is like a down and dirty version of a farmer’s market. Familiar with the different ajumma (aunties) vendors, here my host mom would collect the produce, fish and other fresh ingredients she needed to cook for the week.

I soon came to find that my host family had a ritual of eating breakfast together. This was the only opportunity they had to eat as a family since my three host sisters ate lunch and dinner at school. Every morning before anyone else was awake, my host mother would lovingly prepare a huge Korean breakfast that she always assured me was “Good for your health.” Being a just-coffee-for-breakfast type of person back in the United States, a typical breakfast for me in Jeonju consisted of doenjang chiggae, a boiling hot soybean paste stew (with a very interesting earthy smell), grilled mackerel fish and many banchan, or side dishes, that are a hallmark of Jeolla cuisine. My host mom would proudly point out the massive amount of banchan: bean sprouts, spinach, anchovies, squid, sesame leaves, green peppers marinated in soy sauce (my favorite) and of course kimchi.

This meal wasn’t exactly the liquid caffeine “breakfast” I was accustomed to back home and sometimes the chiggae or kimchi was so spicy I had to have a few glasses of milk to calm my taste buds. However, I could tell breakfast was an important to my host mom. It was her way of nourishing her family for the day. A true Jeolla woman, she always made sure the banchan was plentiful and varied in color. Fresh ingredients were the mainstay of her cooking – some were even directly from her garden. The attention and care she put into this first meal of the day has made me rethink which foods (or lack thereof) I should constitute as breakfast. Oh, and I kind of miss that little kick of spice in the morning.