Seolleongtang설렁탕

There are several stories about where seolleongtang (설렁탕) came from. The best known says that after a Joseon king performed rites at the Seonnongdan altar and plowed a field himself, an ox was cooked into soup and served to onlookers aged 60 and over, and that the dish began there. Another theory points to old foreign-language glossaries recording that the Mongols called plain meat broth shuru or shulu, and suggests the cooking method came from Mongolia.

Seolleongtang became a Seoul specialty and a popular food early on. In 1929 the magazine Byeolgeongon ran a tribute describing how, within a minute of sitting on a bench, you were served an earthenware bowl and a plate of kkakdugi radish kimchi, and how slurping the broth, heaped with green onion and chili flakes and salted to taste, was beyond compare. Because the broth was snow-white and rich, newspapers of the day also wrote its name as 雪濃湯, "snow-thick soup." Some people too proud to be seen in such eateries had it delivered to their homes instead. In Hyun Jin-geon's 1924 short story "A Lucky Day," the bowl a rickshaw man hopes to bring home to his bedridden wife is seolleongtang broth.

The noodles in today's bowl arrived after liberation in 1945. Noodles made from aid flour were added, boiled beef slices (suyuk) joined the menu, and the classic seolleongtang restaurant lineup was complete.