'She will also make jeon or Korean pancake, either using meat or vegetables, mixed with flour and egg.'īack in Korea, Olivia used to invite family and friends over for a meal on New Year's Day. This year, the food consultant who's married to chef Sebastien Lepinoy of Les Amis, will be preparing her version of tteokguk, or rice cake soup cooked in beef stock with meat and seaweed. 'Sebae is an act of kneeling and bowing, and wishing the elders '새해 복 많이 받으세요 ( SaeHae Bok Mani Badeusaeyo)', which means 'having lots of luck in the new year'.' 'The kids will usually perform the 세배 ( sebae) as a form of respect to their elders, who in return will present them with 세뱃돈 ( sebaetdon), which is similar to Chinese red packets ( ang bao). 'Growing up in a big family in Korea, our relatives would visit my family, and we would gather and perform ancestral rituals. Olivia Lee who was born and bred in Daejeon, Korea has fond memories of new year back home.

Olivia Lee, founder of SoGoodK, purveyor of premium Korean products The following food and drink experts share more about their traditions. The celebratory feast usually includes white rice cake soup, traditional confectionery, fresh seasonal fruits as well as sweetened drinks. The festive period lasts for three days, from the eve to New Year's Day and the day after. There were even superstitions associated with the agriculture for the new year in which one would pull up a barley root and if there were more than three strands would signify a bountiful harvest, two would mean an average one, and one root strand would mean a poor harvest.This year, Koreans celebrate their New Year or Seollal on Feb 1, one of the most important holidays in their calendar. Other superstitions included good or bad fortune for the new year said to be determined by whether one would hear a magpie in the morning (good) or a crow (bad). There were even restrictions on women visiting another household as it was said it would bring bad luck to the visited household. For example, in the past it was considered unlucky for grains to leave a household on new year's day as it would mean the household's wealth would also leave the house in the new year.

Many of them had to do with the first day of the lunar new year. Though not quite relevant in today's age, Lunar New Year in the past for Koreans came with quite a lot of superstitions attached to it. Other families also add homemade mandu (dumplings) to make it into more heartier dishes like manduguk or tteokmanduguk. Though all families will eat tteokguk, there are different variations of the dish including an oyster broth-based tteokguk in certain coastal regions and different shaped rice cakes such as the mini snowman-like joraengi tteok used typically in tteokguk of the Gaesong region.

The whiteness of the rice and soup is also said to reflect a pure body, mind, and heart as one enters the new year.

Eating tteokguk is not only thought to usher in good luck for the new year but on a significant level it reflects gaining a year older under Korean age when everyone turns a year older on New Year's Day. This hot soup dish is made with a protein-based broth (most commonly beef) in which seasonings and sliced plain, oval-shaped rice cakes are cooked and then topped with chopped scallions, cooked meat, toasted laver, cooked egg. While some of the main dishes prepared can vary by family and the region they are from, one dish that is ubiquitous across all Korean families is tteokguk (or rice cake soup).

Korean lunar new year dishes