Jajangmyeon 炸醬麵

choi

Sam Sifton, Paint It Black; A Korean noodle that celebrate love and loneliness. New York Times Magazine, Apr 3, 2016.
www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/magaz ... -lonely-hearts.html

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: Jajangmyeon is comfort food of the first order, as pleasing as takeout pizza, kung pao chicken.

(b) Quote:

In South Korea: "Black Day, on April 14, [is for] a celebration of loneliness and sorrow: 'couples' hell, singles' heaven' * * * Those unencumbered by dates or romance are meant to gather in their sharpest, blackest outfits and eat one of Korea’s great comfort foods, jajangmyeon, a thick, coal-colored gravy of black-bean sauce, pork and onions ladled over fat noodles and served with sweet pickled daikon.

"The dish is a Koreanified take on the fried sauce noodles served in Shandong Province in China. Brought to Korea by immigrants to Incheon * * * it now occupies a place in the nation’s cuisine that is similar to the one General Tso's chicken has in American food.


Note:
(a) To make jajangmyeon at home takes upward of an hour. "That is longer than it would take a guy riding a moped in a duct-tape-patched North Face bubble jacket to deliver it to your house in Seoul, to be sure. But you’re probably not in Seoul anyway, and if you make it at home, jajangmyeon will transcend the gloopy realities of delivery food"
(i) Google (bubble jacket) and you will see photos.
(ii)
(A) gloop (n): "another term for glop"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.co ... rican_english/gloop
(B) glop (n): "informal, chiefly North American[:] a sticky and amorphous substance, typically something unpleasant"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.co ... erican_english/glop

choi

(b) "My first and favorite jajangmyeon is the one I was served at Hyo Dong Gak, a Korean-Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, after confessing to a Korean-born friend my strong and abiding affection for Americanized Chinese food. 'We have that, too,' she exclaimed. Soon she hustled me off for lunch: jajangmyeon and a plate of tangsuyuk, the Korean version of Chinese-American sweet-and-sour pork."

Korean Chinese cuisine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Chinese_cuisine
(hanja [漢字] 中華料理; Chinese restaurants in Korea are unusual in that they are owned and run by Koreans, rather than ethnic Chinese; jajangmyeon [hanja:] 炸醬麵 + tangsuyuk [there is no corresponding hanja, though Chinese is 糖醋肉])

My reading of the Wikipedia link is that Jajangmyeon is distinct from that of China only because the Korean version is "made with a dark soybean paste."

(c) "Recipes for jajangmyeon abound. Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard put a fine one into their recent cookbook, 'Koreatown.' Robin Ha has an illustrated version in her forthcoming 'Cook Korean: A Comic Book With Recipes.' Maangchi, the Korean cooking YouTube star, published one in her 'Maangchi’s Real Korean Cooking.' My jajangmyeon riffs slightly on all of those."
(i) list of Korean family names
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Korean_family_names
(Chang 莊, 章, 張, 蔣; Hong 洪; Ha 夏 [Cantonese pronunciation for 夏 is also 'ha'] )
(ii)
(A) Maanchi, What's happening to Maangchi these days?  Jan 11, 2010 (blog)
www.maangchi.com/blog/what-happens-to-maangchi
("Yesterday, Sunday at 4:30 pm [Eastern Standard Time (EST)] (Korean time was 6:30 am on Monday), I was interviewed by Mr Doowon Seo on his live radio show in Korea named 'Sisa Jeonmangdae' (current news) for about 10 minutes. Over the phone, he asked * * * how I got my name 'Maangchi' when I opened the interview with: 'Hi, I'm maangchi!' I mentioned how the name was my character's [or avatar's] name in an on-line game I used to play. [in reply to a question for her real name:] My name is Emily Kim and my Korean name is Kim Kwangsook. Maangchi is my nickname!")

In the top horizontal bar, the "About" tab indicates, "I was born and raised in Korea * * * I live in New York City now."  She is 65 years old.
(B) Julia Moskin, If Julia Child Had a Korean Cousin. New York Times, June 3, 2015
www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/dinin ... an-julia-child.html
("Maangchi, pronounced MAHNG-chee and meaning 'hammer' in Korean [written as 망치], was the name of her online avatar, who specialized in destruction, wielding a huge scimitar and wearing a tiny miniskirt")
(iii) riff (probably by shortening & alteration from refrain [of a song; as a noun])
(n): "a distinct variation : TAKE <a disturbing…riff on the Cinderella story — Daria Donnelly>"
(vi): "to perform, deliver, or make use of a riff"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/riff

(d) "The preparation is not dissimilar to making a ragu in Italian cuisine. You sauté diced pork belly and shoulder, then add to it ginger and garlic, then vegetables. To this softened but still slightly crisp mixture, you add chunjang [explained in jajangmyeon in (c)], the Korean black-bean paste that is more caramelized than the Chinese version and, to many, crucial to a successful jajangmyeon. Water makes it into sauce, and a light hand with salt and sugar helps even the flavors out. Ladle the result over noodles cooked soft and pliant, then serve right away."
(i) In Italian, ragù is a noun masculine.
(ii) ragù
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag%C3%B9
(the word is from French ragoût [which, pronounced the same, is a stew])

Quote: "If tomatoes are included, they are typically limited relative to the meat, making it a meat stew rather than a tomato sauce with added meat.