Gamja-jeon감자전

The star of gamja-jeon (감자전), the potato, reached the Korean Peninsula relatively late. Yi Gyu-gyeong's Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango says it first came into the northern Gwanbuk region (Hamgyeong) between 1824 and 1825. Another account says Qing Chinese ginseng diggers who slipped across the border planted potatoes, and the leftovers spread from their fields. Within a few decades potatoes had spread widely, and in places such as Yangju, Wonju and Cheorwon they are said to have kept people from starving in famine years.

In mountain areas such as Gangwon Province, potatoes were not a side crop but a staple. Around 1920 a farm in Gangwon brought in German varieties and bred new ones, and slash-and-burn farmers planted and spread potatoes too. Gangwon cooks used them in every way imaginable: potato rice, potato dumpling soup, mashed potato porridge, braised potatoes and potato pancakes.

Potatoes peak around the summer solstice. Farmers learned from experience that this is when they grow best and yield most. One Seoul cook recalled that until the early 1980s potatoes all but vanished from markets after autumn, so people waited for the new crop of haji gamja, or solstice potatoes.