Traditional Korean Fare?

Last night I went out with Jim for some live octopus. Well, slightly alive. They diced up the octopus raw, and then laid it down on our plates for the forbidden dance. Jim watched the tentacles flail like a kid who was given his first vanilla ice cream. I was a bit more trepidatious. Especially after Jim warned me about the suction cups.

"It'll stick to your tongue, if you leave it there," he told me.

"Stick?"

"Yeah, the tentacle."

"So it could potentially get lodged in my throat?"

"Just make sure you chew it a few times before you swallow."

I put the tentacle in my mouth and started chewing immediately.

"What do you think?" Jim asked.

It was like chewing the fat off a steak. It was all muscle. There was no taste. It had no special aroma flavor. Just a tentacle. Then it was down my throat and in the upper intestine.

"Isn't it great?"

I couldn't share Jim's sentiments. I am a very finicky eater. I don't like too many things. In fact, I am rather plain. Turkey burgers with a side salad, or salmon on a bed of rice, are my ideal choices for a meal. I am not into much of anything else. I probably could have taken this into consideration before I arrived in Seoul, but bygones are bygones. Now I'm here and I'll have to let my palette explore and adjust.

"You would like traditional Korean food," SY, Jim's girlfriend tells me. "There's rice with every meal."

"Rice?! Why aren't we having traditional Korean fare than? Why is it octopus and barbecued pork?"

"Because Jim," SY laughs. "He likes these foods."

Jim gives me a helluva smile. It just gets me laughing. Here I am suffering through the strangest foods, when I could be having traditional Korean fare. Well, go figure. At least now I know that there's such a thing. I'll try and get my hands on the basics - a Korean cookbook or work something with the ingredients available to me. That is what I must do. Survive and adapt. I'm on a desolate planet. I must reconfigure the plans for a food source. It just might be possible to grow some edible plants of some sort before shipments arrive from Nebulous One.