Hamburger and Bossam

Hamburger and Bossam
A Koreans’ favorite dish, “Bossam”

The most and, at the same time, the least familiar thing in a foreign country may be food. When I visited some foreign countries to try some dishes of those countries, it almost made me very curious in one way, and in another way when I encountered some strange stuff, I felt some nausea. But, as for American food, I had already had many of them even before I came to America and there was nothing new about American fast food to me when I got in Chicago. But, ironically, as a foreigner these foods still don't make me feel comfortable whenever I try it. One fast food meal may be O.K., but more than that will be a disaster for my stomach. One of them is hamburger. Strangely, As a Korean, we eat burger-like stuff called bossam. Seemingly hamburger and bossam don't look similar, but, in fact, they are much more different and I will let you know how hamburger and bossam are similar and different and why Koreans do like bossam so much.

First, these two foods share many common things. Instead of bread, we eat rice. To make a hamburger, you put vegetables and meat between the bread, but for bossam we wrap meat, rice and some sauce in lettuce or other vegetables. So the total kinds of ingredients are similar; carbohydrate from the bread for hamburger and from rice for bossam. Both use meat and some kinds of usual vegetables like lettuce, onion, or tomato. So except the taste of the sauces used for both you can expect somewhat similar taste from them.

On the other hand, hamburger and bossam are quite different. Hamburger uses a fried meat pad, but bossam uses boiled meat in marinated water. In addition, we use hot red pepper sauce called kochujang, but hamburger uses some sweet American sauce like honey mustard. Kochujang is really hot. Furthermore, many people like to add some garlic or sliced green onions or premature red pepper itself. Therefore, bossam can be much hotter and many Eastern Asians or some Central Americans like Mexicans will love it because of its strong spices.

Finally, hamburger sometimes is called a junk food because it has too many calories, but has little good nutrients. In fact many researches report that having this kind of fast food on a daily basis may bring up great problems in one’s lives. On the other hand, bossam is called a kind of well-being food. First, the meat is boiled and it has very low level of cholesterol, and people will have various kinds of vegetables and herbs at the same time. Many vegetables work against the malfunction of cholesterol of the meat and some of the herbs have some medical effects themselves. So, it is really good for many people and it is healthy.

Some said, “If you want to know a culture, try some of their foods in the culture.” In that way, we can really see what the people of the specific culture value through their food culture. We value healthy and balanced life. Traditionally, we have cooked food through boiling, not frying. As one single culture cannot be perfect, nor can one single food culture be perfect. If we know more about our food and health, our life will be richer and our body will be healthier. Therefore, we have many reasons to try and know each other's food for fun and for health in this melting-pot society.