A Festival of Soybeans
The crowd enjoying the festival
A celebration commending the Jangdan soybean, a vegetable known to have been served to rulers, was held a weekend ago at the Imjingak Plaza in Paju, Gyeonggi-do Province. Around 760,000 guests rushed to the three-day celebration between November 21 and 23 to appreciate recently reaped beans and to take an interest in the extensive variety of exercises on offer. Jangdan soybeans are named after the area where they began: Jangdan-myeon in Paju, Gyeonggi-do Province. This mixed bag of vegetable has long been known for its extraordinary quality, both regarding taste and nourishing worth. The quality was formally perceived in 1913 when it was chosen by the administration as a farming item whose supply expected to be empowered.
A festival for all ages
The Jangdan area is known for its ideal common conditions for soybean development. It has an extensive every day temperature contrast, low temperatures amid the winter and the earth is comprised of disintegrated rock, useful for seepage. Therefore, soybeans become in the Jangdan locale are referred to have twice as much or more natural substance and to have 50 percent more isoflavone, a polyphenolic compound with hostile to growth impacts. Each November, amid the soybean harvest season, Paju City has the yearly celebration, denoting its eighteenth run for this present year. At the celebration, individuals purchased up a mixture of soybeans – beaktae, jwinunikong and bamkong beans, among others – at a sensible cost. They additionally delighted in different projects on offer, for example, making little meju, cakes of soybean that can be utilized when making soybean glue, examining bean rice cakes and partaking in customary people recreations. One elderly gathering appeared charmed in their nostalgic contemplations. Jeon Sun-hwa in her 70s, from Gangwon-do Province, said, “This is the first run through for me to make a meju in excess of 20 years. It helps me to remember the past when I used to make these consistently, from day break until sunset.”
The crowd enjoying the festival
On the opposite side of the venue there was a soybean cooking challenge. Various culinary experts from different districts the nation over presented an extensive variety of soybean-based formulas. There were heaps of bizarre yet yummy-looking dishes on presentation, for example, tofu flapjacks, glutinous rice cake pies, soybean chicken and a soybean shake. Paju City Mayor Lee Jae-hong said amid his salutary comments that, “I am happy to have the eighteenth Jangdan Soybean Festival. Today, We might want to acquaint you with soybeans that are created with pride by the 60,000 Paju ranchers. I trust this celebration turns into a spot where ranchers and customers can impart their affection for this item.” The opening function was additionally gone to by Mayor Zareh Sinanyan of Glendale, California. “I heard that soybeans from this area are a percentage of the best in Korea,” he said, communicating his interest for Jangdan soybeans.
Image from Hancinema, Flickr and Korea Taste