Japchae잡채

Japchae (잡채, 雜菜) literally means "mixed vegetables," and in its earliest recorded form there were no noodles at all. The version in Eumsik Dimibang, a 17th-century cookbook, was a medley of finely cut cucumber, radish, mushrooms, bean sprouts and pheasant meat, dressed with a sauce of pheasant broth mixed with strained doenjang and thickened with flour.

Japchae also comes with a colorful anecdote. One story from the reign of King Gwanghaegun says that Yi Chung, head of the Ministry of Taxation, won his post by presenting japchae to the king, and people mocked him as the "Japchae Minister." The tale appears in several old writings, but it is best enjoyed as a story rather than settled history.

Glass noodles came much later. Dangmyeon, made from sweet potato or potato starch, arrived from China in the late Joseon period, and mass production took off after a large factory was built in Sariwon, Hwanghae Province, in 1919. Noodles are thought to have entered japchae during the Japanese colonial period, and they appear in cookbooks such as Ganpyeon Joseon Yori Jebeop from 1934. Today, japchae is a fixture of Korean feast tables.