mouthfeel

제주 돼지 항정살: Pork collar — also known as neck or jowl — from Jeju island, famous for its black hog. There’s not much you can say about pork that hasn’t been said a thousand times over. If you’re an omnivore, you’ve already experienced how crap most of it can be. Dry pork-chops that belong in a Raymond Carver story… you know how it goes.

So if you haven’t had the opportunity to eat Jeju black pork in Korea, you’ve been gypped a thousand times over. It is special. It has an intense, free-range, Berkshire-ish flavor. (My limited research indicates that there is some relation between Jeju pork and the famed Berkshire/Kurobuta breed.)

And the collar? It’s out of this world. In contrast to the crispy/chewy thing going on with the common belly (also delicious), the collar’s fat distribution renders each piece texturally consistent, juicy, tender, melt-in-your-mouth, religious experience, etc., etc., etc., and so on and so forth. I’ve been habituated to the taste by the steady availability of the stuff — meat crack is what it is — though I can tell you that the first time I tried a bite, fresh off my pitiful electric stove-top, my eyes totally bugged out and I gasped and everything. Now, lesser pork will not do. A bit sad, but once you go black pork…?

몸국: A Jeju island specialty called “mohm-guk” — literally, “heart soup.” “Mohm” is kind of a special word and, depending on the context, can mean heart, body, mind, spirit, etc. In other words, broth for the soul, made from black pork and a special type of seaweed.

No, it doesn’t look so appetizing, and I myself was not terribly impressed when it came out. The crazy thing about Jeju, though, is that everything that is not fish tastes like the embodiment of some terra firma faerie: rich, earthy, heartening, life-affirming.

I cannot impress upon you the bewilderment I experienced as the spoon first dribbled its contents on my lips, the astonishment and delight of two plentiful native ingredients — an emotion welled up so wholly honest and astonishing and foreign, I still can’t quite grasp it. I’ve never tasted anything remotely close in flavor to this soup. It was as if, for that one weekend in Jeju, I had discovered the island of lotus eaters, and, when forced to leave, bitterly wept at my loss.