All dishes / East Asia
Bibimbap Period BOrigin theory CVerified
Some fields (dish name, region and gates) are shown from the Japanese-edition data.
In this Korean dish, rice is topped with vegetables and meat, then stirred with a spoonful of sauce and eaten. The deep red of gochujang could only have come after New World chili reached the peninsula, but whether mixed rice itself is older than chili remains unsettled.
Verification highlight popular claim → verdict → evidence
Bibimbap is often given a court pedigree, or claimed for Jeonju as its birthplace, but the sources settle neither claim. Wikipedia lists older names for mixed rice, among them hondon-ban in Bak Dong-ryang's Gijae japgi (about 1590), but about 1590 falls within the years in which, on the common view, the chilli came to Korea from Japan, so whether mixed rice came before the chilli is unclear. Yi Ik (1681-1763) uses the word goldong in a poem but does not say what it was; the explanation of it as rice mixed with fish, meat and vegetables comes from a note in a 2007 Korean translation, not from Yi Ik. Yi Gyu-gyeong's Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango (early nineteenth century) calls the vegetable goldong-ban of Pyongyang a delicacy and lists a dozen other kinds. The late nineteenth-century Siuijeonseo gives a method under the names goldong-ban and bubwimbap, according to the Korean food site LampCook. Neither Yi Ik's poem nor the Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango ties the dish to ancestral rites, the court or Jeonju. The red gochujang bowl can only come after the chilli reached Korea; the Jibong yuseol of 1614 says it first came from Japan, so it was there by 1614 at the latest. A 2015 study in the Journal of Ethnic Foods finds that none of the many origin theories has strong support. A first appearance in writing marks the latest date by which a dish existed, not the date it was invented.
The three gates
- Ingredient-supply gate
- Rice was a long-established local grain. The version dressed with gochujang could only appear after the chilli, a New World plant, reached the Korean peninsula. Yi Su-gwang's Jibong yuseol of 1614 records the chilli and says it first came from Japan, so the chilli was in Korea by 1614 at the latest. The entry does not say when it came. On the common view that it came from Japan around the time of the Japanese invasions of 1592-98, it arrived between 1590 and 1614. That arrival is the earliest point at which a red bowl of bibimbap becomes possible.
- Cooking-technique gate
- Cooking in a heated stone pot, mixing the bowl, and fermenting the gochujang. Yi Ik (1681-1763) mentions goldong as a food in a poem without saying what it was, and the early nineteenth-century Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango lists a dozen or so kinds of goldong-ban, mixed rice, beginning with a vegetable one; both were written after the chilli reached Korea. Whether mixed rice existed before the chilli is unclear. When serving it in a hot stone pot became a set style is not known.
- Venue gate
- There are two accounts: one has offerings from ancestral rites mixed into a single bowl, the other makes it court food or traces it to Jeonju. Neither Yi Ik's poem nor the Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango mentions either origin, and a 2015 study in the Journal of Ethnic Foods finds that none of the origin theories has strong support.
Overview
Tracing the names of mixed rice
Bibimbap is a bowl of rice piled with an array of toppings, stirred together and eaten. Today it is sometimes served sizzling in a hot stone bowl, and the sauce stirred through it is bright red gochujang.
The habit of mixing several side dishes into one bowl of rice has come down under a number of old names. Those listed by English Wikipedia include hondon-ban ("chaos rice") in the Gijae japgi (Miscellaneous Records of Gijae), written by Bak Dongnyang around 1590, and goldong-ban in the Diary of Cheongdae by Gwon Sang-il, who lived from the late seventeenth into the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century they are joined by beubwieum, spelled in the Korean alphabet in Jang Hon's Mongyupyeon of 1810, while the Myeongmul giryak of 1870 records that goldong-ban was read as bubaeban.
The name goldong-ban, written in Chinese characters, also appears in nineteenth-century records. Yi Gyu-gyeong's Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango, from the first half of the nineteenth century, has an entry on goldong-ban. It names the vegetable goldong-ban of Pyongyang as the prized one, then lists a dozen or so others made with raw fish, salted shrimp, marinated crab, fresh cucumber and more, and says that everyone relishes them. Mixed rice of this kind is the prehistory of bibimbap.
The cookbook Siuijeonseo, an anonymous, undated manuscript in Korean script thought to date from the late nineteenth century, records the dish under two names, goldong-ban and bubeumbap. English Wikipedia counts it as the oldest known recipe for bibimbap.
The road to today's red bibimbap needed one more event. Chili, the raw material of gochujang, is a New World plant that crossed the sea to reach the Korean peninsula. It first appears clearly in Korean writing in Yi Su-gwang's Jibong yuseol of 1614, which says it first came from Japan. The red bowl took shape after that arrival.
How we know
More than one account of where bibimbap came from has been handed down. One holds that it began with the offerings from an ancestral rite, mixed into a single bowl and eaten after the ceremony. Another makes it a mixed rice for clearing away the greens left at year's end. Others trace it to a mixed rice served to the king at court, or tell of the town of Jeonju as its true home.
No firm evidence has yet emerged that would let one of these accounts be named the origin. A 2015 paper on the history of bibimbap judges that none of the theories about its origin has strong support. The Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango, from the first half of the nineteenth century, names Pyongyang as the source of the prized vegetable goldong-ban, but says nothing of ancestral offerings, of the court, or of Jeonju. Jeonju bibimbap, made with soybean sprouts and gochujang, is today the best-known version of the dish. Even so, no source naming Jeonju as the birthplace has yet been found. That Jeonju is famous and that Jeonju gave rise to the dish are two different matters.
How old mixed rice itself is remains unsettled too. Yi Ik (1681-1763) works the word goldong into his poem "Yochan" (rice with broth poured over it), but the gloss that explains it as rice mixed with fish and vegetables comes from a note in a 2007 Korean translation, not from Yi Ik himself. Yi Ik's poem, the Oju yeonmun jangjeon sango and the Siuijeonseo were all written after chili reached the peninsula. Nor is it clear whether hondon-ban, dated to around 1590, predates chili's arrival. The origin story remains a set of competing accounts, and how far back mixed rice reaches is, for now, still an open question.
The full set of origin theories and the detailed verification log — traceable all the way to their sources — are available on the Japanese edition.
See the full origin theories and verification log (Japanese) →
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