food tradition

Usually Koreans celebrate New Years Day and Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) with large amount of food. Both New Years Day and Korean Thanksgiving are three days long holiday, so all family members gather together and prepare a variety of food. In the early morning of New Years Day and Thanksgiving, most Korean people make a breakfast table for the ancestors (NO ONE can eat the food before this ritual. It is considered very rude..). All family members should wear formal suits and make a bow twice for our ancestors. We think that ancestors come to our house to celebrate the holiday together and bring good luck to our family.

Preparing this breakfast table is very difficult and demands a lot of work. In my family, my mother does everything to make the breakfast table for the ancestors even though she does not enjoy cooking. (But she's a great cook) The cooking starts the day before holiday. She buys fresh fruits (apples, chestnuts, pears, mandarin oranges) and other ingredient. While my father cleans the house, my mother starts cooking. I and my older sister help her. First, she makes steamed beef with delicious sauce (I have a trouble explaining Korean food in English!) and prepares salad. Salad is not traditional Korean food, so technically it is wrong to put salad on that breakfast table, but she makes it because I and my sister love my mother's salad. She also starts to make Korean traditional sweet drink with fermented rice. She also cooks several kinds of fried vegetables and fish (again, hard to explain in English). Making these fried vegetables and fish really demands a lot of handwork but is essential in Korean holiday's cooking. She has to make soup and seasoned vegetable, too. There are also other food that I did not mention.

After making all these food, my mother gets exhausted and sometimes she becomes sick. Therefore, 5 years ago, my father made a great decision- he said that our family will not make the breakfast table for the ancestors any more because my mother always has to suffer!! He broke our food tradition! So now she does not have to prepare the formal breakfast table. She only cooks several special food. I think it was really good decision both for mom and myself because making holiday food demands a lot of handwork and actually I do not like holiday food much.....