Gamjatang감자탕

Gamjatang feels like an age-old dish, but as a restaurant staple under that name it is fairly young. According to a columnist who combed through old newspapers, the name gamjatang only shows up from the early 1970s; before that the dish was mostly called gamjatguk. One long-running Seoul restaurant traces its roots to a shop that opened in 1958 selling gamjatguk.

One explanation for how pork backbones became everyday soup fare points to the 1960s, when exports of pork meat to Japan grew and the leftover spines were sold off cheaply. In the 1980s the stew took off in the bars and hangover-soup houses of Seoul's secondary downtowns such as Yeongdeungpo, Yongsan and Sinchon. Some stories credit Jeolla Province or Incheon with its birth, but no record yet pins it to a single place or restaurant.

The best-known tale about the name says the gamja isn't a potato at all but a part of the pig's spine, the so-called "gamja bone." No traditional butchery term of that kind has been confirmed, however. A likelier explanation, one analysis suggests, is that bones sold for gamjatang were shortened to "gamja bones" in the meat trade, and the nickname was later mistaken for the origin of the dish's name.