how to start the day in the country of the calm morning

 The Korean breakfast is very different from the Western one: in fact, Korea tends to avoid sweet early mornings and to have a purely salty breakfast. To be honest, the traditional Korean breakfast doesn't differ much from a lunch or dinner and is very filling. However, given the hectic life of recent times, many Koreans have started to have a more frugal breakfast or skip it altogether, indulging in just a takeaway coffee from one of the many coffee shops.

Now let's see what the traditional Korean breakfast is made up of and how it has changed over time.

Traditional Korean breakfast

The traditional Korean breakfast is meant to be a full meal and gives a lot of energy to face the day. It, therefore, consists of many dishes served in small portions, so that all together give the necessary nutritional intake. On the table we always find steamed white rice, which is the basic ingredient of the Korean diet, a soup, and various banchan, that is side dishes, including kimchi, that is, cabbage marinated in a spicy sauce. Apart from these, dishes such as roasted or grilled fish, galbi, that is, can be served with pork chops, tofu, Kieran Mari, a sort of omelet rolled and filled, or otherwise. Nothing prevents you from combining all these dishes in a single breakfast.

However, the preparation of this type of breakfast takes a lot of time, having to cook more dishes. For this reason, Koreans in recent years are increasingly moving towards a Western breakfast, mainly with bread and eggs.

Western Korean breakfast

The Korean Western breakfast consists of toast with eggs, which can be scrambled, hard-boiled or fried. However, the Korean-style fried egg is slightly different: towards the end of cooking, in fact, the egg is turned over as is done with an omelet, so that the yolk also solidifies and does not remain yielding. Korean sandwich bread, on the other hand, remains a little sweeter than ours. Bread and eggs are often accompanied by jam, usually strawberry. All this is then accompanied by instant coffee, American or coffee, and milk. Many substitute bread for rice completely, while many others still prefer to have their own bowl of rice along with everything else.

If you prefer to try a Korean Western breakfast at the cafe rather than at home, you can find many toast chains, the most famous being Isaac Toast and Egg Drop. Otherwise, you can also find it in the numerous coffee shop chains. However, Korean toasts have a decidedly sweet taste, and often, even if you choose a classic toast, corn is also added to the filling. It is therefore not to be ordered if you want an Italian toast, but only if you want to try different flavors.

Breakfast at the bar or bought to take away is often accompanied by an American coffee, ordered cold (with ice and to be drunk with a wide straw) or hot, to be drunk with a very narrow straw. Those who don't have time to order coffee directly along with food can help themselves later at, the Korean mini-market, where it is much cheaper.