1. Vegetables for eating

There are some cultures in Southeast Asia that wrap grilled meat and vegetables in rice paper and eat them as spring rolls, but there seems to be no food culture like ours where vegetables are wrapped directly and eaten. It is delicious and stylish to eat pork belly wrapped in lettuce and other vegetables.

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In the early winter kimchi season, it is a delicacy to eat the yellow inside of pickled cabbage with seasoned insides and oysters, and in early spring, cabbage called bomdong is also eaten wrapped with oysters.

Jeolgal from the southern coast of Jeolla Province and the saury inside of Gomchi Port on the Byeonsan Peninsula are famous for this reason.

Ganggyeong’s jeolgal is not located on the coast, but it is a market formed by going up the Geumgang River like Noryangjin in Seoul, and it is similar to the fermented skate from Yeongsanpo on the Yeongsan River.

​2 Vegetables for wrapping

Lettuce as a wrap vegetable is said to induce sleep due to its lactucarium component, but experts have stated that it is more likely due to the desire for sleep caused by being full, but it is questionable which is the truth.

When eating pork belly, if there is no lettuce, it is like a steamed bun without red bean paste or underwear without a rubber band. There are many types of wrap vegetables such as lettuce, perilla leaves, bok choy, and romaine.

Most of the vegetables eaten as wraps are usually eaten raw, but boiled cabbage is another delicacy in our case when wrapped in soybean paste, and in the West, it is said that boiled cabbage was fed to children who did not listen because of its mushy texture as a way to scold them.

3 Food and digestion

Raw vegetables are absorbed in the small intestine with vitamins and minerals, and the rest is almost undigested and excreted in the form of cellulose as fiber, the sixth nutrient. Cooked vegetables are said to have better functions than raw vegetables in terms of intestinal movement due to fiber, even though the vitamins are destroyed.

Strong-smelling ingredients such as peppers, garlic, and onions are used as wrap ingredients to increase appetite and neutralize the fishy and gamey smell of meat.

Among other types, young sprouts are used in various types as wraps, and are grown artificially through hydroponics for only about two weeks, harvested, and shipped to the market.