One day in February Juche 93 (2004), Chairman Kim Jong Il sat together with officials and gave an important instruction to retain the indigenous dishes at each province.

   He reminded them that President Kim Il Sung, indicating that kondengi (a kind of tiny shrimp) and pickled shrimp were famous in Phyongan Pronvince and tangogi soup and myongthae hot chowder were in Hamgyong Province, had already mentioned several times to encourage the indigenous dishes at provinces. He pointed out that nowadays our officials themselves were not paying attention to the development of the folk food and some of them had no idea of the local dishes, leading to the disappearance and medley of the dishes peculiar to the provinces and to the imitation of the hot and salty ones of Hamgyong Province everywhere.

   It was more than a serious matter. If such situation was neglected, it would be impossible to carry forward and develop the excellent food heritage created by our ancestors in a proper way, and moreover could result in the grave consequences of losing the national identity.

   That was why the Chairman showed deep care in preserving the traits of the indigenous dishes.

   He even passed on the measures in details for retaining indigenous dishes including as to actively involve the old who had lived long in the provinces and improve the management of the provincial specialty restaurants.

   Thanks to his benevolent measures local dishes are being further developed retaining their unique traits over the country and provincial specialty restaurants have been built in Pyongyang to preserve the national character in food culture.