Dr. Kopchang (Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love To Eat Cow Intestines)

One of the most amazing things about living in Korea is the food. I’ve been planning on posting about Korean dishes for a while but I haven’t had the chance to get a digital camera yet. Luckily, Matt brought his along for perhaps one of the strangest and most surprisingly delicious experiences I’ve had here.

We both decided to hit up Coex Mall for our Constitution Day holiday (hooray, American imperialism!), hoping to take a look at some technology and pick up a few things here and there.

But we were to find out that Coex Mall is unlike most shopping centers outside of the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Not only does it have its own waterfall, international hotel, and duty-free store, it ALSO has its own aquarium and Korea’s official Kim Chi museum (yeah, try finding a mall in America that has an entire floor dedicated to the wonders of spicy pickled cabbage).

We went to a bookstore that had a surprisingly good selection of English works (one third of it was “Pass the TOEFL, or Get into Harvard” type instruction books. That may only be funny to me.) After both of us purchased pocket Korean-English dictionaries we decided to walk around, check out the Sony and Apple-retailers and of course the ridiculously attractive females.

All that walkin’ and a’ gazin’ made us a bit peckish, so we decided to head to the Hongik University area (a story for another time)… but because the subway was closing early due to the holiday we changed plans and went to the nearest university on our subway line for a beer. Unfortunately for us, the Seoul National University of Education was actually just a commuter college for aspiring young teachers, so instead of crazy clubs and a vibrant bar scene we were treated to drab apartment complexes and a Baskin Robbins.

After walking around for a little while, finding nowhere that seemed too appealing, we decided to simply pick a restaurant that was pretty much full. Obviously, if a lot of people eat there it must be delicious. The lemming strategy usually works, save for two instances: picking Korean restaurants, and the eponymous classic PC game. (Compatible with SoundBlaster16 card!)

When we sat down I knew there was something special about the restaurant. For some reason it smelled exactly like Waffle House. You know the smell; dead, greasy animal fat that is simultaneously revolting to think about and mindlessly comforting.

While I haven’t learned as much Korean as I’d liked to have since I’ve been here, I have pretty much mastered the alphabet and recognize most food vocabulary (tahng is soup, gahlbee is ribs, dweji is pork) and how to ask for things (“um, hooker chusey-yo?”). However, this menu included none of the above. Scrambling frantically through our newly-purchased dictionaries, we simply had no fucking idea what the hell they were serving… but it smelled amazing.

The waitress recognized our indecision and confusion (given away by the whiteness of our skin) and just decided to order for us. She said “Kopchang, dug-gey,” and promptly went off to get our beer and cabbage. After she said the name of the meal I realized I had read one of the hangul characters incorrectly and went back to look up what we ordered again.

The entry: kopch’ang – chitterlings; small intestines (of cattle)

Me: “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Matt: “What?”

Me: “Take a look for yourself.”

Matt: <searches for the entry> “Are you fucking kidding me?”

The last lemming had just fallen off the cliff.

Resigned to going hungry for the night, we figured ‘we may as well try it.’ What they served us was this:

Hmm… actually looks pretty good right? Well, yeah, it was pretty damned tasty believe it or not. We were in luck, apparently kopch’ang is not just intestine but also beef heart and stomach too! Though the chewiness and overall wierdness of eating a cow’s digestive and circulatory system should not be understated, I will say that getting straight to the good stuff — pure, unadulterated fat — is the only way to go.

Here is me eating a piece of poop chute:

The funniest part of the entire ordeal was that the owner of the restaurant was hovering over us looking for signs of our approval, while the wait staff was kind of laughing at us trying to decipher exactly which part of the cow we were eating (we had to glean that information from the owner after an incredibly confusing exchange leading him to utter the words: “No sell beef, cow farm closed. Holiday.” I must sound like a complete moron when I attempt to speak Korean.)

He was of course convinced we’d like it, if we tried it.  Kind of like the Daecheon seafood restaurant owner we visited before the mud festival. She probably said the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard a business owner say to Yong, the only Korean at the table: “Tell the Americans that if the food is too salty I’ll take it back and make something less fresh. The squid came from the sea a few hours ago.” I never understood what the big deal was with seafood until I came here; let me assure you that animals caught directly from the ocean are unequivocably better tasting than the miserable crustaceans in a Red Lobster tank in Roswell, GA.

Anyways, that’s neither here nor there. The point is that living in Korea has really changed my outlook and sensitivity to trying new things. Its like newness doesn’t phase me anymore. In fact, if a day goes by in which I don’t experience something new or radically different its pretty disappointing. This coming from a guy who refused to eat rice until he was in the 11th grade. Now I’m in fucking Korea. Go figure.

~ by David Ogles on July 28, 2007.