My emotional attachment to soondubu jjigae (Korean soft tofu stew)

As I grew up, I was never very keen on spicy foods. I would watch my mother and brother eating very spicy curries, and biting into fresh bird's eye chillies, both intrigued and incredulous about how anyone could enjoy inflicting pain on themselves, especially in an area as sensitive and significant to me as the palate.

Fast forward to my last year of uni, which I spent in an incredible adventure in Shanghai, China, where I made friends, not with Chinese people, but mostly with Korean foreign students. 

The university was a popular destination for Korean students, and consequently the foreign student canteen served a variety of traditional Korean dishes.

15 years later, I am still obsessed with the dish I kept going back to: a spicy soft tofu stew, or soondubu jjigae.

My Korean friends made me try it the first time, their answer to my objections about my dislike for spice being that spice gives you a "fresh" feel at the same time as being warming.

I wasn't entirely convinced but I had intuitively rationalised the concept in my mind, enough to give it a try.

The first mouthful was volcano hot, firstly in temperature, being served still bubbling in the earthenware pot that it was cooked in, burning my mouth and my tongue, and secondly in spice, the deep red colour having warned me of the dangers of the experience. I looked at my friends through a tear in my eye, they were nodding and smiling encouragingly. 

We didn't have a fluent language in common, but body and sign language, and facial expressions turned out to be very effective ways of communicating our appreciation for each other and other emotions that built and strengthened our friendship.

I went back for seconds, determined to share the experience they had described, another way that I had at my disposal to understand them better. 

Sweating and gulping air to cool my mouth down, I finished my bowl of stew, feeling proud that I had conquered the challenge, but also feeling that I had understood an area of the human experience which had been closed to me until then.

The burning spice in one's mouth isn't just pain, it triggers many other things in your body: the heat, the sweat, the struggle of your mouth to cool down enough to keep going for more, as a small challenge that builds your character and makes you feel strong and winning, and the endorphins releasing into your body, making you feel awake, warm and happy.

I had this stew again and again during my stay in Shanghai, developing a stronger understanding of the experience and each time, giving in a little more to the pleasures of this black bowl of red volcano.

Today I take pleasure in this dish for all these reasons, and an additional one, which is the nostalgic reminiscence of those days of sharing meaningful human experience with wonderful people with whom I didn't even have many common words to express myself or my feelings for them.

It reminds me that the human experience transcends borders and languages, and fills me with the belief that the human race is good and that the world is a wonderful place for us to experience.