“food has a lot to do with memories and things to do with the past. it’s a conversation piece” - my dad
i love dog food. not literal dog food, but gehbap: geh meaning “dog” and bap meaning “rice” in korean. it’s used more as a pejorative, to describe a dish that is an amalgamation of everything in your fridge—from last night’s leftovers to the last scraps of the banchan left in tupperware—rice, some sesame oil, and soy sauce. kind of like the concept behind budaejjigae, or army stew. it’s ugly, messy, and random, but very very delicious. it requires little to no brain power or effort, maybe frying an egg or tearing up pieces of roasted seaweed if you’re feeling fancy. it’s soul food, peasant food, it’s dog food.
(it’s not a real term used by koreans, so i wouldn’t bother looking the word up on the internet. I already checked)
i first heard the term gehbap when i asked my dad at 2am, shamefully wrapping my arms around my stomach to stifle its growls, if he could make me something. just anything because, if you know me, i couldn’t tell you what I’m in the mood for even if I wanted to.
i remember carefully walking around my dad, curiously peering over his big shoulders as he grabbed random things in the fridge like a man with a plan—a plastic wrapped half cut onion, a bag of frozen tater tots, old rice in tupperware, and other ingredients. after what seemed like hours of torture just waiting, he was done with his creation. it didn’t look too appetizing, but, to be honest, i didn’t care that the finished bowl looked like a mess. the smell of mashed tater tots and onions, and the steam from the rice swirling up in the air was enough to make my mouth water. the diverse textures and flavors all blended so perfectly, and i told him that this was my favorite meal from him. he laughed loudly and said that he too loves gehbap too. gehbap: ugly, yet delicious. he explained to me, though, that the next time he makes it it won’t taste exactly the same, and that’s the beauty of gehbap. you can’t replicate it, at least not exactly. it’s simply a mixture of what you have in your kitchen at that moment in time and the only thing you can do is savor it.
what differentiates gehbap from bibimbap is intentionality and presentation. with bibimbap, the elements are oftentimes intentional. at traditional restaurants, you expect almost all colors of the rainbow—red gochujang, julienned orange carrots, yellow cooked egg, seasoned green spinach and cucumbers, and white rice. but with gehbap, there are no rules and no expectations. you simply trust the process. there isn’t a goal to make it look pretty, because really, the only person who will be eating this is you. it’s not for your instagram feed or for your friends, but for your eyes and belly only.
there’s something to appreciate about the simplicity of gehbap. the authentic no-bs nature of it. because when you come home from a tough day, your limbs slowly gravitating towards the floor, and you feel like you could sink into a pile of nothingness, when you are tired of using your fake meeting voice and presenting a cheerful attitude, when all you want is a good, tasty meal, and you could care less about including all of the food groups: you make gehbap. it may be ugly and make you question whether it will even taste good, but after that first bite when you’re starving out of your mind, you take the spoon out of your mouth closing your eyes and say “wow, this is amazing.”
at the end of the day, food should be nourishing. as someone who owns a food account, i’ve most definitely felt overwhelmed by beautiful platings of dishes made by other food creators. i’ve made dishes that may look pretty, but had no flavor or wasn’t filling enough. i’ve had meals at restaurants that were three dollar signs on yelp, but didn’t live up to the hype, making me second guess whether i was the weird one. i realize now that we should let food be food and appreciate it for what it is, not what it may present itself to be. because sometimes, i don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to create something beautiful. sometimes, all i want is a warm bowl of rice and leftover banchan and to share it with someone i love.
