Milmyeon밀면

Milmyeon (밀면) is a noodle dish born of Busan's refugee years. During the Korean War, refugees from the North who had fled to Busan made a living selling naengmyeon, the cold noodles loved in Hamhung and Pyongyang. But buckwheat flour and potato starch, the usual noodle ingredients, were hard to find in Busan. Wheat flour, on the other hand, was arriving in large quantities as aid and had become cheap, and noodles made from it are said to be how milmyeon began. For a while it was even known as "cheap naengmyeon."

Uam-dong in Busan's Nam District is often named as its birthplace. One family that escaped in the Hungnam evacuation of December 1950 settled in a refugee village there built from converted cattle barns, and in 1953 opened a naengmyeon shop named after their seaside home village in the North. They kept the original recipe but used more wheat flour in place of costly, scarce potato starch, and added a spicy, salty paste to suit local Gyeongsang tastes.

Milmyeon first appeared in restaurants in neighborhoods where many refugees lived, such as Uam-dong, Gaegeum, Gaya and Danggam-dong, and new shops kept opening after the war ended. Many of Busan's best-known milmyeon restaurants are still run by refugees' descendants or by locals who inherited their recipes. A bowl that once eased homesickness is now one of Busan's signature dishes.