Mandu
🍖 With meat or fishMandu are Korean dumplings, filled pasta pockets that can be steamed, boiled, pan-fried or deep-fried. They have been part of Korean cooking for centuries and are now sold in supermarkets, restaurants and street stalls across the country.
History
The origin of mandu is uncertain. Sources point to two main routes of arrival. The first places their introduction from the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, during the Goryeo period. The second suggests an earlier arrival from the Middle East along the Silk Road, as part of the wheat-based cooking that spread from Mesopotamia towards Central and East Asia.
Buddhism, the state religion of Goryeo, discouraged eating meat. The Mongol presence relaxed that prohibition, and mandu began to appear with meat fillings. An early record in the Goryeosa mentions dumplings in Korea, though its best-known story carries a legendary element that should be read with caution. A Goryeo-era folk song, "Ssanghwajeom", describes a dumpling shop run by a foreigner, probably of Central Asian origin.
Culture
Korean mandu come in many forms depending on region and cooking method: gun-mandu (pan-fried), jjin-mandu (steamed), mul-mandu (boiled) and wang-mandu, a large savoury bun similar to the Chinese baozi. There are kimchi versions, vegetable-only ones once eaten in Buddhist temples, fish-wrapped royal-court styles, and the flat napjak-mandu of Daegu. Today they appear everywhere from restaurants and street stalls to fast-food counters, often as a side dish or in soups such as manduguk.
Legend and fact
A story recorded in the Goryeosa tells of a man who cut his own thigh meat to cure his father and used it as a filling for dumplings, after which the king rewarded him. It is a moral tale rather than a verifiable fact. Likewise, the attribution of the dumpling to the strategist Zhuge Liang and to the sacrifice of prisoners during the Three Kingdoms period is a Chinese tradition without secure historical confirmation.