South Koreans cry foul over beef, turn to greasy pork
By Park Ju-min
SEOUL, June 22 (Reuters Life!) - In South Korea, U.S. beef is out and greasy pork is in.
Just don't mention the calories or cholesterol.
U.S. and South Korean trade envoys said at the weekend they had forged a deal to allow a wide variety of U.S. beef products back into South Korea, which banned imports in 2003 after an outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States.
Before the ban went into effect, one of the most popular items at Korean barbecue restaurants across the country was a dish called L.A. galbi, an inexpensive cut of U.S. beef attached to ribs.
With cheap U.S. meat no longer available and South Korea having some of the highest beef prices in the world, restaurants needed something inexpensive to toss on the grill. They turned to the dish called "samgyupsal", a fatty section of pork belly.
Samgyupsal, layered meat and fat that looks like thick slices of bacon, has now become a grilled staple in smoke-filled eateries from the southern resort island of Jeju to the border with North Korea.
One popular twist is tilting the barbecue sheet at an angle to let the grease from the pork flow into a pickled and peppered cabbage dish called kimchi grilling at the bottom of the pan.
"As the greasy pork slides into my stomach, I can feel all the stress from my job slipping away," said C.J. Kim, one of several salarymen at a Seoul barbecue joint ending the evening with samgyupsal and cheap liquor.
L.A. galbi, with L.A. standing for Los Angeles and galbi being Korean for a cut of beef on the rib, made up a hefty portion of the nearly 200,000 tonnes beef imported into South Korea in 2003 before the beef ban.
Industry experts are not sure how much market share L.A. galbi will regain in South Korea once U.S. imports resume, given the depth of anger over the beef deal.
Tens of thousands of Koreans have taken to the streets for weeks demanding U.S. beef stay out of the country because they fear it still poses a mad cow disease risk.
The Korea Swine Association said the U.S. beef ban has led to a boom for its business.
For public health, though, that's a different matter.
According to the Korea Health and Industry Development Institute, the pork dish has added calories to the national diet while the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Trade Corporation says Samgyupsal is brimming with saturated fat and cholesterol.
"It is best to cut out as many of the fat layers as possible (before grilling)," said Lee Young-eun, a nutrition expert at Wonkwang University. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by David Fogarty)
