Though smaller than its more well-known counterpart in Tokyo, Seoul’s Noryangjin fish market is almost as impressive, and has a much more relaxed attitude towards visitors. A short walk from the Noryangjin metro station, it’s also infinitely more accessible. You can smell the market from the moment you step on to the platform. Follow your nose and a series of pedestrian walkways to an enormous warehouse, home to over 700 vendors and every variety of sea creature imaginable. Like most fish markets, Noryangjin is most active from the middle of the night until about dawn, when the catch is at its freshest and Seoul’s most dedicated restaurateurs can make their selections, floodlights illuminating massive fishtanks and ice-covered pallets of shellfish in the chill air.
I arrived at a far more respectable hour, too late for the midnight frenzy. The market is bustling at all hours though, with vendors eager to sell everything from red snapper to sea squirt, all priced by the kilo. The negotiations are brief, but intense, the impatient proprietors quickly identifying those not truly interested in making a purchase and abandoning them for easier prey. Time is of the essence when your food is still alive.
Walking through the fish market is an adventure in itself. The ground is slick with sea water, melted ice, and occasional smears of fish blood; the discerning consumer typically prefers his sushi butchered in front of him. Scales and delicately transparent bones cluster around drains in the floor. The regulars wear galoshes. Long tables heaped with shrimp, oysters, mussels, lobsters and crabs compete with buckets of octopus, squid, and eels, their thrashing bodies splashing a customer that leans in too close. Flounder, yellow trail, barracuda and snapper seem to be the most common fish, but I quickly give up trying to identify the overwhelming variety of ocean life.
Well aware that merely visiting the market is only half the battle, I’ve done my research. Why come all this way after all, without making a purchase? Though it’s tricky to narrow down the bounty of seafood in front of me to just a few things, my husband and I eventually make our selections. First, the smallest yellow tail we can find, due to our desire to experience as much variety as possible. It’s swimming around a fish tank and, though I braced myself for its execution, there are some things for which it’s difficult to prepare. I enjoy (catch and release) fishing from time to time, but my husband is typically charged with the icky remove-hook-from-mouth part. I have also on occasion seen a fish beheaded and cleaned. From what I recall, it’s usually quick, and I pride myself on being only a tiny bit squeamish.
Not so on this occasion. Upon confirming our purchase with a very gruff fisherman, he seized a long fish hook, expertly snagged his unsuspecting victim, and flipped him quiet suddenly onto the ground in front of us, where the fish, as fish are wont to do, began aggressively flopping around. I don’t quite remember moving, but found myself watching the scene unfold from behind my husband’s shoulder. (Side note: having a tall travel partner is key for hiding). The fisherman, casting a very judgmental eye-roll in my direction, casually strolled over to the gasping fish and whacked it on the head repeatedly until it mercifully died. Mercifully for the on-lookers, anyway. While he cleaned the fish, I recovered enough to purchase two live octopi about the size of my hand and two abalone.
One of the distinguishing features of Seoul’s fish market is that the upper level hosts several traditional Korean restaurants. Though they purchase their own sea food from the market during the day, they encourage patrons to bring the raw ingredients with them as well. We headed upstairs with our haul, handing off our packages to the waitress and settling under long, low tables overlooking the buzzing marketplace. Since we had decided to eat everything raw, we didn’t wait long.
The yellow tail, served sashimi-style, was predictably amazing, its relatively gruesome death quickly forgotten in the ecstasy of eating it. Our trip to Korea and then Japan ruined all other sushi for me, and this experience was certainly among the most memorable.
The same cannot be said for the abalone. Up to this point, everything I knew about abalone I had learned from Scott O’Dell’s children’s novel Island of the Blue Dolphins, which I read about a million times as a fourth grader. I can now say with certainty that, his genius as a children’s author aside, Scott O’Dell has never eaten an abalone. For those of you not familiar with Science, it turns out that an abalone, which the novel erroneously claims are tender and sweet, is a sea snail similar in appearance to a large mussel. The inside animal part is almost one hundred percent cartilage. It’s the culinary equivalent of eating an ear, but not as delicious and a little chewier.
Despite the abalone setback, the coup-de-gras of our eating experience were the octopi. As you may or may not know, the octopus is an incredible creature. Though perhaps not its most impressive attribute, the nerve endings of an octopus can live up to several hours after its death. This means that the octopus tentacles, sprinkled with sesame seeds and served with a sesame dipping sauce, were brought out still-wriggling on a plate.
The challenge of eating them is two-fold. The tentacles, despite what I can only assume is a lack of independent thought, seem remarkably adept at evading chopsticks and, when captured, use their still-working suction cups to adhere to the plate. Once the tentacle has been pried from the plate and dipped in the sauce – not a small feat as it continues to wiggle – you can attempt the actual eating part. Even when all hope seems lost, the tentacle refuses to accept its tasty destiny, grasping at your teeth and sticking to your gums as you chew it into submission. Here is a video of our efforts to first hunt a tentacle and then, for the first time, eat food that fights back.
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Clearly we’re not the predators we thought we were.
In addition to being a once-in-a-lifetime eating experience, our efforts to embrace some of the more unusual cultural practices of South Korea did not go unnoticed by our fellow restaurant patrons. A near-by table of very serious Korean businessman, chuckling heartily at our expense, sent over two glasses of soju and two of the largest, most incredible raw oysters I’ve ever eaten. They seemed to understand our abalone situation perfectly.
That’s the thing about new experiences I think, in addition to being very memorable and sometimes scary. It creates a bridge between you and the people who so comfortably inhabit the spaces you find yourself struggling in. I’ve found that once you take the first step, they are more than willing to meet you half way.
Let’s be fearless,
Jen