Chungmu-gimbap충무김밥

Chungmu-gimbap (충무김밥) is thought to have appeared after Korea's liberation in 1945. Chungmu is the former name of Tongyeong, a port city in South Gyeongsang Province, and two stories explain the dish. One says it began as a meal for fishermen. Out on the summer sea, gimbap rolled with fillings spoiled quickly, so they wrapped only rice in the seaweed and packed radish kimchi and other side dishes separately. The other points to Tongyeong's role as a ferry hub linking nearby islands with Busan: the rolls were sold to passengers at the old ferry terminal, which is why they were also called baenmeori gimbap, "ship's-bow gimbap." Both stories agree that rice and sides were kept apart so the food would last through the summer heat.

The side dishes changed over time. At first, vendors are said to have seasoned webfoot octopus, small squid and mussels, plentiful near the local anchovy grounds, and threaded them on bamboo skewers to sell with the rolls and radish kimchi. In the 1970s, cuttlefish, then caught in large numbers around Tongyeong, became the main ingredient. Because it fed people doing hard physical work at sea, the old version was described as "big, cheap and rough," with more side dishes than rice.

Chungmu-gimbap became known nationwide in 1981, when it was entered in a food contest at Gukpung 81, a large cultural festival held on Yeouido in Seoul, and picked up by the press. Today Tongyeong even has a waterfront street lined with chungmu-gimbap shops.