My unexpected lessons—in the shape of Korean rice cakes

Food is a universal language that I just love to both learn about and partake in. There’s a lot to learn about a people’s culture through the food they eat. How they ate during hard times, how the royalty or the peasantry ate, and even the materials of their utensils can tell you a lot.

I’ve done my fair share of traveling, language-learning, and research on different cultures, but I’ve never tried cooking the food of different cultures. Beyond eating out or watching niche food history videos, I’ve never really thought about doing the cooking myself. I’m at best a foodie, not necessarily a cook. So when I was invited by the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) to join its tteok (rice cake) making workshop, I was more than happy to jump at the opportunity. It would be really something new for me.

KCC invited media and friends to celebrate by making tteok, a Korean traditional rice cake that symbolizes celebration and togetherness in Korean culture. We made not one, but two, types of tteok to share with friends and family. One was a Korean donut type called gaesangjuak, the other a fermented steamed rice cake called zzeungpyeon sulddeok.

I’ve never been to a physical cooking class, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was placed in the media group and made to stand before fairly familiar ingredients. There were also the distinctly Korean ingredients I’d never seen—and I got interested to know! Perhaps the curious cat in me found interesting these ingredients that aren’t readily available; makes you wonder if there’s anything in our own Filipino kitchens that would be unfamiliar to a foreigner, and what that would be.

We were introduced to the dishes and learned about their significance in Korean culture. In the old era, the ingredients were fairly hard to come by, the rice cakes were something that only royalty and the extremely wealthy could afford. Today, of course, rice cakes are for everyone, celebration gifts for families and friends. This reminded me of our Filipino-Chinese tradition of eating tikoy during the Lunar New Year, and wondered if there were influences there that made their way to our Filipino dinner tables.

Our Korean instructor demonstrated how to cook the rice cakes. I found it fascinating how easy she made the process seem; when  our turn came, we kind of struggled. We tried to familiarize ourselves with the ingredients, but it was a bit confusing, and my group ended up mixing the wrong ingredients. Thankfully, the ingredients of both dishes were somewhat interchangeable, and our instructor saved our rice cake batter before we could completely mess it up. This was a lesson to both go with the flow, and also not be afraid to ask questions—if we asked for help, we wouldn’t have messed up. Indeed you learn lessons best when you make mistakes.

My group and I ended up mixing the wrong ingredients. This was a lesson to both go with the flow, and also not be afraid to ask questions

It was straightforward after that little (literal) mix-up. We fried the batter, and left the steamed batter on its own. The frying was my favorite part because it was the first time I didn’t fear deep-frying. Watching the plump donuts that I had formed, cook and turn golden brown left me with a sense of accomplishment. Seeing all the ingredients slowly come together, even in something as small and simple as a donut, could be quite gratifying.

Something I realize now is how in cooking, you need the skill to be flexible in the kitchen. You’d think that by just following a recipe, everything would naturally fall into place. In fact, there were so many times I had to learn on the fly—like having to adjust the heat without the instructor’s guidance because our donuts looked like they were taking too long to cook, or having to adjust the way we made our donuts as we fried them because we didn’t have the exact utensils our instructor did. I thought back to when I was younger and trying a new recipe, and that feeling of frustration when something didn’t go the way I intended. Or it was similar to when I took an art class, and all the life lessons I learned from that hobby were happening here, too. Standing in a hot kitchen in front of frying donuts, another life lesson was added to my mental bank.

Another lesson you learn from cooking—time management. My group and I didn’t realize how much time it would take to decorate our rice cakes, so we had to begin managing our time so that we could all package our rice cakes in time for the gift-wrapping, the class’ final part. It was a mad dash to finish the last batch of frying, dipping, decorating, then packaging our rice cakes so that we could have something to show for all our hard work.

In the end, I was exhausted but proud to see in that beautiful cloth wrap the product of three hours of my hard work. I also did not just have delicious rice cakes to enjoy, but also plenty of lessons learned, from managing my time to learning how to bounce back from my mistakes. Who would think you could learn so much from cooking?

How did the rice cakes turn out? Honestly, they were good! They were more savory than I expected, the gaesangjuak having a slight saltiness balanced out with the rice syrup we dipped it in. It had a nice chew, thanks to the dough made of rice batter, as opposed to flour batter. The zzeungpyeon sulddeok was the even bigger surprise because it tasted so much like our own puto, but less buttery, though I imagined if we slathered butter on it you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference—not bad at all! If anything, it’s interesting that our own rice cakes are similar to Korean rice cakes.

Our Korean cooking proved memorable. Though tiring, it was extremely fulfilling to cook delicious food which I later got to share with my family at home. 2024, for me, has been a year of trying out new things and learning a lot in the process.

Thank you to the Korean Cultural Center for this fun workshop! I look forward to attending more of their classes.