What really gets you when you get into the heart of Gwangjang Market is the smell.

Stalls abound selling varieties of kimchi and gochujang, the fiery basic elements of so much Korean cookery. There are hawkers slinging jokbal, the gelatin-rich marinated pork trotters said to promote glowing and healthy skin. Nestled next to theses stands you’ll often find cooked pig heads — and the guarantee that the knuckles you’re about to chew on came from the same pig.

Whenever I head back to my father’s homeland of Korea, one of my first stops is Gwangjang and this bustling, colorful market, located in the Jogno district in South Korea’s capital, Seoul. But it’s not because I have any interest in improving my skin with pig’s feet. No — the main reason I go to Gwangjang is to eat my favorite Korean dish, a mung bean pancake known as bindaetteok.

Bindaetteok. Republic of Korea Flickr

Bindaetteok is not a complicated dish — it’s made of a mix of ground up mung bean, sweet rice, fern brake, bean sprouts, and kimchi, then often filled with other delights, like ground pork and scallions and garlic. Historically, bindaetteok was a food that the wealthy passed out to commoners during holidays. It's existed as a food for centuries in Korea, and is part of a proud tradition of pancake-like things in Korean cuisine. When I was little, I called them "Korean pancakes" because they were, to me, better than the other classic Korean pancake, pajeon. The bindaetteok at Gwangjang vary based on which stall you hit up — but my favorite is at a stand called Soonheene, one of the more famous places to get it, but nonetheless the perfect place to eat bindaetteok and drink a bottle of maekgolli for breakfast.

The first time I ate bindaetteok there was the second time I came back to Korea as an adult. I was born and raised in Southern California, and my dad’s parents lived with us for much of my youth. Rather than speak English with me, his mother, my halmoni, would communicate with me through food. And perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite thing that she made was bindaetteok.

Halmoni’s bindaetteok has taken on a mythical status in my mind.

Halmoni’s bindaetteok has taken on a mythical status in my mind — and they are as much a part of my origin story as a crusader for good Korean food as any other dish in the grand repertoire of Korean cuisine. Her pancakes were perfect; a snappy, crunchy outer crust giving way to the crumbly yet creamy filling. Then, a hit of garlic; the sour tang of a crisp morsel of kimchi; the watery pop of a bean sprout. This was the perfect food: It was sweet, savory, tangy, creamy, crunchy. Every texture, every flavor, everything about halmoni’s bindaetteok held the soul of Korean food. Her bindaetteok also remains the spiciest I’ve ever tried, and I partially attribute my still-powerful tolerance and desire to eat spicy food at all times to this.

My father died when I was 13, and one of the first things that happened after that was my Korean grandparents moving out. I think this was partially cultural, and partially because my halmoni just never liked my mom, who is white. Not too long after this, both grandparents became frail with age. I never got to eat my halmoni’s bindaetteok again.

Bindaetteok being prepared at Gwangjang Market. Republic of Korea Flickr

For many years, my mom tried to learn the secret of my grandmother’s bindaetteok. Despite being a Polish-American from New Jersey, my mom is one of the most flexible cooks I’ve ever known. She has a knack for flavors and foods, and she’s a damn good Korean cook — far better than any of the white chefs I’ve seen peddling vaguely Korean-ish garbage at me for 30 dollars a plate in San Francisco.

But she could never, ever get bindatteok right.

My mom likes to say that halmoni sabotaged her, and I think she’s right. Halmoni begrudgingly taught my mother how to make a lot of Korean food, and it was always through visuals, since she refused to speak English. I say refused, because she actually very much could. She just… didn’t want to. For her, refusing to speak English was a way of clinging to her culture and the roots that she had to abandon in exchange for the promise of a better life for her family. It also meant she didn’t have to talk with my mom.

When halmoni showed my mom how to make bindaetteok, it was different every time. There was always a step missing, or an ingredient that shifted. My mom’s bindaetteok tasted good, but never like halmoni’s. Of all the Korean foods that she taught others how to make, her way of making bindaetteok was the secret she took to her grave.

I was desperate to taste those flavors again. I wanted it to be right.

A few years ago, I tried to make it myself, and failed in way that I have never failed at cooking before. (This is coming from someone who managed to blow up a bowl in a microwave once while trying to make popcorn.) After so many years of searching for halmoni’s bindaetteok — after trying bindaetteok in countless Korean restaurants in LA, in the Bay Area, and in New York — it had never been right. I was desperate to taste those flavors again. I wanted it to be right.

Instead, I bought the wrong mung beans, I pulverized them in the wrong way, and my clumsy hands couldn’t form the shapes that I saw in my memories. I’ve gotten pretty good at making Korean food, something that I mostly learned from my mom — which is an amazing thing in and of itself; halmoni’s Korean food, through a Polish-American woman’s filter, made by biracial hands, constantly reaching and searching and despairing that I’m messing it up. And that time, I did: My bindaetteok were limp, and even worse, an insult to my own lineage and heritage. Disgusted, I dumped out the remaining batter and resigned myself to never tasting halmoni’s bindaetteok ever again.

And then, on that fateful trip wandering through Gwangjang Market, my good friend and colleague, who had grown up in Seoul and still goes back annually, said he knew the best place to get bindaetteok. We wound our way through the maze of ajummas and ahjussis and tourists and college kids, through the kimchi stands and pig heads and bulk textiles and fake purses — and eventually, we got to Soonheene.

Bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market. Flickr

Outside, ajummas slowly pedaled on stone mortars, grinding mung beans into fresh batter. Giant pillars of bindaetteok, piled high and wide, sat in the to-go section of the store. My friend asked for a table, and luckily, we got one.

The bindaetteok came, and I took my first bite. Much like Anton Ego in "Ratatouille," the feelings, the taste, the memories came rushing back. These were decidedly not halmoni’s bindaetteok. No, they were too big, too chunky, not really spicy. But there was something unmistakable about the flavor, about the textures, that brought her back to me, vividly.

I had believed I’d never see halmoni again, never see her smile or taste her food, and certainly never feel like I’d eaten her bindaetteok again. In that moment, though, I felt her embrace, I saw her smile. I had found her again, back in Korea, amongst the bustling crowds of faces that looked like hers, hearing the language she spoke, and finally — finally — finding what I had spent so many years looking for.

Noah Cho teaches middle school English in the San Francisco Bay Area. His previous writing has appeared on NPR's CodeSwitch, The Atlantic, The Toast, and Catapult. He spends most of his free time going on hikes with and taking photos of his doggo, Porkchop.

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