Snail Soup
On one of the hottest days in May this year when most people were seeking shade and water, my cousin and I went running. People looked at…
On one of the hottest days in May this year when most people were seeking shade and water, my cousin and I went running. People looked at us like we were crazy foreigners and they weren’t wrong. When we stopped at a roadside spring to fill our water bottles, the people filling their large plastic jugs quickly invited us to the front, exclaiming over our red faces. (Usually it’s the hair).
Not a hard core runner myself, I turned back home after 5K. The road runs mostly along the winding Pyeongchang River, with traffic moving faster than the chevrons suggest. At points where the road crossed over the river, I noticed many fishermen and women, some at the edge, others knee-deep in the middle of the flow. Numerous others, mostly elderly women, were bent low over the water collecting 다슬기 (da-seul-gi). The simple English translation is snail; the latin specification, semisulcospira libertina.
Unafraid of snails or maybe just too hot to care, I spontaneously finished my run with a soak in the river. Letting the cool, firm current push against my shoulders, I watched the flow break around the toes of my sneakers and the sun play on the rippled surface. Then, on impulse, I decided to fill my empty water bottle with the snails clinging to the rocks under the water. Other collectors often use a plastic container with a clear bottom that magnifies the desired gastropods, and pull along bucket-shaped nets that hold far more than a water bottle. Some restaurants will pay good money for daseulgi, and use them for soups or savory Korean pancakes. They’re also used for medicinal purposes. In ancient Korea, they were said to be good for stomach pain and indigestion.
Back home, I tried making soup with my harvest. The broth and added vegetables were delicious, the daseulgi themselves less so. Either I misunderstood the directions in the instructional video — it was all in Korean — or I just haven’t acquired a taste for daseulgi. Maybe I’ll try again. For now, when I see people dotted along the river, backs bent and arms reaching into the water, I’m content knowing that I’ve tried it myself.
