Hak Ja Han
November 24, 2016
Excerpt
Celebration of the US holiday of Thanksgiving
Cheon Jeong Gung
In truth, Thanksgiving is not something familiar in Korean culture. Right? For the sake of the global providence, I lived in the United States for more than forty years. Also during the ocean providence in Boston, I spent a lot of time in Gloucester, and I created this dish. It wasn't turkey. We would go out fishing around 5:00 in the morning, before daybreak. Therefore, when we come back late, we would have to take care of our nutritional needs. Also, because there were so many people, we couldn't get enough turkeys to feed everyone. What was easy to get though were small chickens.
This was something that could be found easily. I would stuff them with rice and include nutritious ingredients -- ginseng if we had it, or other things. We would give each person one chicken. It was unlike any kind of food they had seen before. You cannot imagine how delicious it was. It would be stuffed with rice and other garnishes. It had a sweat taste from the raisins we put in it. It was delicious. Everyone would eat heartily.
If we had a special event, I would treat people to that dish. In America during the Thanksgiving holiday, they would serve turkey. You have to have cranberry sauce with turkey. It is essential. It is not a sauce, it is more like a jelly; calling it cranberry jelly would be more accurate. If we treat them to that, everyone liked it. This is something I came up with. So I asked the caterers especially to make this. They went to a lot of trouble, but because our cultures are different, it came out differently than I expected but I enjoyed it….
Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? We celebrate Thanksgiving because we must become blessed families that first thank heaven for everything, hoping for heaven's compassion as we work to achieve Heaven's dream.
