When they said ‘festival’ I imagined something big. This is the smallest festival I’ve ever seen — fewer than half a dozen companies from South Korea…. maybe five. I was disappointed by the paltriness so I didn’t bother being thorough. It’s a sales event with a few samples of dried myeolchi (멸치 = anchovies).
2009 LA 수산물 판촉전
Yet I’ve got to hand it to those folks staffing the tables. They were proud of their products and were really hustling in a positive way.
The most dominant item was seaweed. Stacks of giant packs from South Cholla province — Wando Island in that jurisdiction is famous for kim (김 = dried sheets of “laver”). The other kind of seaweed they had was wakame, the brown seaweed that you rehydrate to use in miyeok-guk.
Two seaweed companies: one was Jaewon GlobalNet, the other was Oyang, which was touting its unique patents for making seasoned kim — invention numbers 0455993 and 0455994. Not willing to decipher the technical details from the handout, but the first patent seems to involve a three-part process that does NOT require adding MSG, while the second patent is some sort of two-part process. Will update this later. Meanwhile, visit their website taejo.org. No, they did not give me samples, but the ajumma were very enthusiastic so I’m devoting space to them.
Onggolchan (옹골찬) was selling different seafood banchan (반찬 = side dishes). I was glad to see their very substantial tri-lingual brochure with pretty pictures and quite presentable copy in English, Korean and Japanese. Their website: onggolchan.kr
마이징어
The unique marketing angle was provided by Myzingo. Are you familiar with ojingeo (오징어), the dried squid that everyone loves gnawing on? Well, this is Myzingo, which happens to be flavored with peanut butter. Momzzang (몸짱) is the squid’s body (mom in Korean) and Darizzang (다리짱) refers to the legs (dari in Korean). Really clever branding. Website: www.myzingo.co.kr
So this “festival” runs until October 25 (Sunday) in one tiny corner of the the parking lot of Hannam Chain SuperMarket. Address: 2740 W. Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90006.
I did see a lot of Korean ajosshi and ajumma (married men and women in their forties) eagerly snapping up the gigantic packs that were on sale. And I bet Korean-American teens might get a kick out of the peanut-butter-flavored squid. If you’re in the area, might as well drop by. The LAPD is also holding their Halloween carnival about a block east with carnival rides, games, food and a haunted house until Sunday 10 pm.
