Loach soup, a special food of Kaesong
Boiled with bean curd, loach soup is well known among our people as one of the health foods for its good taste and high nutritive value from the ancient times.
From Koryodogyong, a historic book of early 12th century recording the use of loach at cooking, it could be known that loach soup has a long history.
In the past, loach soup was made in all the localities but that of Kaesong area was very popular. In Kaesong, it was prepared by boiling loach and bean curd with soy sauce and hot pepper paste, boiling again with Welsh onion, chili, garlic and leaves of agastache rugosa and finally adding powder of the Korean pepper bush.
However, the loach soup of Kaesong disappeared for a time due to the negligence of the officials in it.
One day of mid-September Juche 61 (1972) President
They counted several folk dishes which were famous in Kaesong as much as they knew such as sangbab (a meal on an individual table), sollongtang (beef soup with rice) and yakgwa (a cake made from wheat-flour, oil and honey). But their answers did not satisfy the President.
What is the special one that he wants to hear?
They were very curious but the President was only smiling. Then, he asked the same question to the old people who lived long in Kaesong.
An old man answered that the loach soup had been a Kaesong specialty from the ancient times.
Affirming his answer, the President said that Kaesong people had liked the loach soup and it was made with bean curd. And he continued how much our people would be pleased if all the special Kaesong foods like the soup were to be found and served to them.
Thanks to the benevolent love of the President who paid deep attention even to a folk food of a locality which was fading away with the passage of the time, a restaurant of loach soup was newly built at the foot of Mt Janam, a scenic beauty of Kaesong, to serve the folk food to the people.
