In mid-February 2003, Chairman Kim Jong Il met officials and stressed the need to develop national dishes and encourage the people to make and eat taffy.

   He told them as follows:

   In the past, Korean taffy was widely known as a special product even in the neighbouring countries. Our people made taffy much. During my expedition tour of the revolutionary battle sites in the Mt Paektu area in 1956, I had tasted black taffy made of potato, and it still remains etched in my memory. From olden times, our ancestors preferred to eat white taffy, and it would be good to encourage our people to make and eat white taffy on lunar New Year’s day according to their traditional customs.

   White taffy is prepared by cooling corn syrup to make it solid and warming it again to elongate it until it becomes white. It was also called meyot or paekdang.

   The Chairman went on: Korean taffy is made of various kinds of materials, including sorghum, corn, rice, glutinous rice, potato and sweet potato, and it is coated with sesame, bean and pine nut.

   According to the materials, the dish was called rice, glutinous rice, corn, barley, potato and sweet potato taffy; according to condensation, it was called syrup and hard taffy; according to colours and shapes, it was called white, black, flat, drop and ring taffy; and according to additives, it was called bean, sesame, chestnut, walnut, pine nut taffy, etc.

   Afterwards, thanks to the Chairman’s ardent love for the nation and benevolent measure, newspapers, magazines and science films gave wide publicity to Korean taffy, and foodstuff factories produced various kinds of taffy suitable to the people’s taste.