A bed of hot, fluffy white rice. A colourful array of vegetables. Seasoned meat or fish. A dollop of gochujang (chilli paste), dwenjang (fermented soybean paste) or ganjang (soy sauce). Possibly an egg on top. Bibimbap is a quintessential Korean dish, but the options for what makes its way into the bowl are seemingly limitless — and its history and origin are equally contested.
Some theorise that the dish’s name originates from ‘goldongban’, a word that comes from written Chinese characters — ‘goldong’ meaning ‘to mix’, just as ‘bibim’ does in Korean, while ‘bap’ means rice — and refers to combining different ingredients with rice in a bowl. Korea’s goldongban ritual was traditionally a way for people to clear out their homes at the end of a lunar year, in preparation for the next. Pantry leftovers would be thrown together, including grains and dried namul (plants), with the resulting dish named ‘goldongjiban’. The first written instance of this word appears in Dongkuksaesigi, a book by Hong Suk-Mo, first published in 1849, describing Korea’s regional customs.
The first known recipe for bibimbap — called ‘bubimbap’ at the time — was recorded at some point in the later part of the same century, in a cookbook called Siuijeonseo, which offered an overview of the foods available in the latter stages of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). It was most likely written by a woman from the aristocratic class; in around 1919, Sim Hwanjin, the newly appointed governor of Sangju, borrowed a copy and transcribed it.
But it’s not certain bibimbap does derive from goldongban — some hypothesise that it emerged as a way for Koreans to use up leftovers from the jesa (ancestral ceremony) table. Others say it emerged from farmers having to feed a lot of people during the harvest — a theory that suggests bibimbap began much earlier than written records, during the late Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), when the structure of the Korean bapsang (traditional meal table) emerged. It’s a compelling argument. After all, when presented with a selection of greens, a bowl of rice and some sauce, wouldn’t it make sense for it all to end up in one large bowl, mixed together and eaten with a spoon?
Bibimbap is usually served in a metal bowl, although the ‘dolsot’ version is named after the — heated — stone pot it’s served in. Originating during the Three Kingdom period (57 BC to AD 668) from the pot used to cook rice over charcoal in centuries past, particularly for royalty, this style of bibimbap is more of a restaurant speciality than a home dish. The technique came close to disappearing during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), but was reintroduced in restaurants in the 1960s. Repackaging bibimbap in this way was seen as a way to reverse a
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