Huraideu-chikin후라이드치킨

In Korean, tongdak once meant any whole chicken, roasted or fried. Later, chicken cut into pieces and fried came to be called by its own name, peuraideu chikin (fried chicken). American-style fried chicken was a big hit from the 1970s into the early 1980s. Even before a major U.S. chicken chain arrived in 1984, shops that had imported only the pressure fryers were reportedly popping up everywhere, selling chicken pieces as 'American-style fried chicken'.

Korean cooks went on to develop several ways of getting the crunch. Embo chicken, which appeared in the late 1970s, has a thin crust fried from a dry coating; minmunui chicken, dipped in a wet batter, comes out smooth and is ideal for saucing; and crispy chicken, coated three times in flour, batter and flour again, stays crunchy for a long time. Whatever the style, the chicken is always marinated in seasoning before it is fried.

By around 2014, Korea's chicken shops were estimated to number between 35,000 and some 50,000. Daegu is often named as the place where the industry took off early: poultry farming developed there from the colonial period, and by the 1970s roughly 80 percent of the nation's poultry farms were said to be in Daegu and North Gyeongsang. The city's chimaek (chicken and beer) festival drew 270,000 people when it was first held at Duryu Park in 2013 and now attracts more than a million every year.