Hwajeon화전

Hwajeon (화전, 花煎) literally means "pan-fried flowers." On Samjinnal, the third day of the third lunar month, people headed out to the fields, picked azaleas and pressed them onto rounds of glutinous rice dough as they fried. The custom is thought to date back to the Goryeo period. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty note that in King Sejo's reign, ladies of high-ranking households gathered their daughters-in-law for a party when the azaleas bloomed and called it jeonhwaeum (煎花飮). The royal court is said to have joined in too, with the queen frying azalea cakes beside the Okryucheon stream in the rear garden of Changdeokgung Palace.

Hwajeon went hand in hand with hwajeon-nori, a springtime outing. When the azaleas were out, the women of a village would meet at a scenic spot, fry hwajeon, sing and dance, and play kkotssaum, hooking azalea stamens together and pulling until one snapped. It was, in effect, a women's festival and a brief escape from home and in-laws. From the 19th century, women in yangban villages of the Yeongnam region also wrote verses called hwajeon-ga about the day's fun and the hardships of married life. In some areas the outing kept its old form into the 1960s before fading away from the 1970s.

Hwajeon was never just a spring treat. Azaleas or pear blossoms went on top in spring, roses in summer and yellow chrysanthemums in autumn. When there were no flowers, cooks shaped "petals" from water parsley, mugwort leaves, rock-tripe mushrooms or jujubes. Hwajeon is still used today to decorate the top of steamed rice cakes.