So I decided I'd make some soymilk with them and make 콩비지찌개 (KOHNGbiji JJIgeh), a stew made with the solids, from the byproduct, which requires soaking/reconstituting, as with any dish made with dry beans.
And when I gave them a stir just now to remove the outer casings and smelled that distinctly green and nutty smell of dry soybeans soaking, I was immediately taken back to being in elementary school and helping my paternal grandmother (할머니 - pronounced HAHLmuhnee) pick the dud beans out of the batch so she could sprout the rest in cheesecloths in an old, broken washing machine to grow soybean sprouts (콩나물 - KOHNGnahmool).
My father's mother, probably from some combination of talent and poverty, had the greenest thumb I've ever known. She could grow anything, and she would collect rainwater in trash cans to water her plants and wash her hair because she thought it was best. (Let's just say I did not inherit her green thumb, but I think I did inherit my sense of frugality from her.)
할머니 passed away years ago at the ripe old age of something that was really close to a hundred, and I don't have that many fond memories of her to be honest - probably some combination of my feisty personality and what seemed to me her preference for the male children in the family (not uncommon for women of her culture and time) - but that's one of them. And we should all take all the fond memories we can get, I think. :)
shinae
No comments:
Post a Comment