Rabokki라볶이

Rabokki is exactly what its name says: ramyeon (라면) and tteokbokki (떡볶이) in the same pot. Both ingredients took hold in an era when wheat-based food was spreading fast. After American surplus-grain aid began arriving in 1956, a campaign urging people to eat less rice and more flour and mixed grains gathered pace, and from 1967 to 1976 the government issued administrative orders on it every year. Korea's first instant ramyeon was produced in 1963. Gochujang tteokbokki, made with cheap rice cakes of aid wheat flour, became a hugely popular student snack from the 1970s on.

No record tells us who first dropped noodles into tteokbokki. But as "instant" tteokbokki caught on, where diners pick add-ins such as fish cakes, dumplings, boiled eggs, ramyeon or chewy jjolmyeon noodles and cook it right at the table, ramyeon became one of the most common partners for rice cakes. Seoul's Sindang-dong tteokbokki alley is still crowded with people coming for exactly this kind of pot. Since the 1990s, more places have switched from wheat to rice cakes, and sauces have branched out into curry, black-bean jjajang and cream.