Samgyeopsal

Thick-cut pork belly grilled at the table over a hot plate or charcoal, eaten by wrapping a piece of the rendered, crispy-edged meat in a perilla or lettuce leaf with a smear of ssamjang (the fermented soybean-and-chilli paste), a slice of garlic, sometimes raw chilli, sometimes kimchi, sometimes a pinch of rice. The Korean barbecue ritual at its purest: pork fat, char, fermented chilli paste, raw garlic punch, and the cooling-fresh leaf wrapper unifying everything.