Naengguk refers to all kinds of cold guk

Guk

Guk , also sometimes known as Tang , is a class of soup-like dishes in Korean cuisine. Guk and tang are commonly grouped together and regarded as the same type of dish, although guk is more watery and a basic dish for the Korean table setting, and is usually eaten at home...

(soups) in Korean cuisine, mainly eaten in summer. It is so called changuk, which literally means "cold soup" in pure Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

, while the term naengguk is a combination of a hanja

Hanja

Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...

 word and a pure Korean word with the same meaning.

The first historical record on naengguk appears in a poem written by Yi Gyu-bo (1168–1241), a high officer of the Goryeo

Goryeo

The Goryeo Dynasty or Koryŏ was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by Emperor Taejo. Korea gets its name from this kingdom which came to be pronounced Korea. It united the Later Three Kingdoms in 936 and ruled most of the Korean peninsula until it was removed by the Joseon dynasty in 1392...

 period (918–1392). In the poem, naengguk is referred to as sungaeng, which literally means sunchaeguk, soup made with sunchae (Brasenia schreberi). Yi praised its clear and plain taste, saying it made usual dishes seem vulgar.

Naengguk is largely divided into two categories according to seasoning and ingredients. The first category is made by mixing chilled water and vinegar to give a sour and sweet taste such as miyeok naengguk made with wakame

Wakame

, Undaria pinnatifida, or Miyeok in Korean, is a sea vegetable, or edible seaweed. It has a subtly sweet flavour and is most often served in soups and salads....

, oi naengguk made with cucumber

Cucumber

The cucumber is a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes squash, and in the same genus as the muskmelon. The plant is a creeping vine which bears cylindrical edible fruit when ripe. There are three main varieties of cucumber: "slicing", "pickling", and...

, pa naengguk made with spring onions, nameul naengguk made with garlic

Garlic

Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...

, and gim naengguk made with gim

Gim (food)

Gim , also spelled as kim, is the Korean-word for edible seaweed in the genus Porphyra. In Welsh this food is called laver...

or nori

Nori

is the Japanese name for various edible seaweed species of the red alga Porphyra including most notably P. yezoensis and P. tenera, sometimes called laver. Finished products are made by a shredding and rack-drying process that resembles papermaking...

. The other category is made to supplement health and has rich tastes such as chilled soup made with chicken, sesame, or soybean

Soybean

The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses...

s.

External links

• Soups and stews from Food in Korea