Does anyone else start dreaming about food when they move to another country and can’t eat their favourite foods? Now before someone starts to reply with “But you can get pancakes in-” Let me just stop you there and explain what I mean. I know you mean well but, as those that follow the vlogs know, my situation is pretty different to those who live in Seoul or even people who live in country areas but by themselves.
So why is it so hard for me to get western style pancakes? Well it’s just not a food that is eaten here much. I sometimes see people’s photos of eating brunch in Seoul at cafes and it seems like a world away. To even get the right ingredients is hard here, but that’s only one aspect of it. Our kitchen is very much a Korean kitchen, things you might take for granted in your kitchen – like measuring cups and wooden spoons – just aren’t here. There was not a knife and fork in this kitchen before I came, so currently we have a knife and fork for when I’m eating something western and we also have a bread knife. That’s it. One fork in this house.
Now the other aspect that makes things a little bit more difficult is that I’m living in a Korean family and my mother-in-law does the cooking. It’s rare that I’m even allowed to cook dinner. Now if I want to cook something for myself I need to fit it into the normal schedule without it affecting my appetite for dinner, because then I could end up offending by not eating much. This type of complexities is not something that other expats need to think about usually. I’m always very worried about offending my mother-in-law when I make something for myself to eat. She has accepted the fact that I will eat bread in the morning, though there has been a lot of worry about me getting sick because I’m not eating enough rice. It doesn’t matter how much my husband explains that rice actually MAKES me ill when I have too much of it, it’s a mindset that is difficult to change and it’s because she cares about me.
People like to suggest me places to go to in Seoul, which I am always grateful for, but most of the time we don’t have the time. When we do go to Seoul we are always very busy and not able to go to specific areas for food.
I have actually come up with a solution for the pancake dilemma though. I can get my mum in Australia to send me those shake pancake mixes that only need water. That way I don’t need a mixing bowl or anything and I can have some pancakes for breakfast without using much in the kitchen and it won’t affect other meals. Why didn’t I think of that earlier??
I really miss “Pancakes on the rocks” in Sydney and all this talk of pancakes has made me remember back in my childhood how Sunday nights were always pancakes nights.
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