People of Heungdeok #1 Tteokhyanggi

Tteokhyanggi

 

Facing the street across Yongin’s own Heungdeok 8th and 9th danji (Korean for apartment complexes) is Tteokhyanggi.   

In the back kitchen of Tteokhyanggi you should see the two members of the staff working like busy bees creating their Korean rice cake, namely tteok! To residents they supply versatile needs faithful to their choice of recipes. Below is the interview I had with one of the smiling, exuberant members of staff.

 

She begins: “Our tteok are daily made. You could call it “Standard.”

 

“There are many ingredients that are used in making tteok. And some of them are more expensive than ever, but they say that “that can’t let that decide our experience and action. I’ll just say that that we maintain the right amount and taste of our ingredients.”

 

She now goes into tteok details. “With tteok, taste varies over what kinds of ingredients. Our customers look for individual taste in their tteok. From pumpkin to mugwort, they come in different form.

“Most customers look for basics such as kkulteok, injeolmi and garaetteok. And we accordingly offer an extremely basic array of baekseolgi, injeolmi, chewy garaetteok and honey-drenching Kkultteok.

“With tteok the basics are rice, water, salt and sugar and we create our own unique daily menu from these. For instance, we try turning out the texture of fluffy baekseolgi, so that our tteok doesn’t thicken over time and last until the next day.”

 

She confides, “I enjoy meeting people in my working place. I don’t see this as business and here’s some fun episode that's really happened. You’ll laugh if you have ever had the chance to try garaetteok.

Customer asks, I’d like some garaetteok, please.

Staff says, please wait an hour.

(one hour passes)

S: Your garaetteok is ready.

C: Now please slice me the tteok into oval type garaetteok for tteokguk soup.

S: Oh, we can’t cut up this hot stuff. You can slice it up in 3 days.

C: Oh! And I never knew that, at my advanced age too! (Laughs together)

 

About their work schedule, she says this very carefully: “our working hours are flexible. Occasionally a customer tells us she/he will pick their food up at 7am, and in that case we open at 5AM. Otherwise, ordinarily our working hour is fixed at 7PM.

“Also, we know and retain a lot of recipes that we can make or cook, but we don’t have enough time to strain and create a few more of them each day. We have come to that decision concerning creation of daily menu."

 

“For me, it is always back to basics for me. Conscience, honesty and hard-working are the most important. Add to that kindness and consideration in the background.”

 

She wants to take away in a lifted mood.  

“Fusion tteok have emerged over time – including such tteok as chocolate seolgi. Also, newer packaging costs a lot too. I should know, I’ve been in this for 20 years.

 

“On the whole, our aim is pleasing 100% of visitors so they come again. We want to recognize quickly their real needs so that they leave satisfied. “The fragrant smell coming from cooking tteok” is what Tteokhyanggi, the name of the shop, originates from. Hyanggi is fragrance."

 

Her final words: “We would say that Western bread is domineering over Korean traditional tteok: Come and taste and rescue us!”