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A pot filled with budae jjigae (October 30, 2025). Photo by Jaeeun Lee..
Budae jjigae: Uncovering Conflict and Comfort
Budae jjigae: Uncovering Conflict and Comfort
by Jaeeun Lee
It’s red and orange—bold and warm. With each spoonful, a fiery spice kicks in and mingles with a deep savory comfort, turning every bite into an addictive surprise. This is my all-time favorite stew—the budae jjigae. Growing up, I wasn’t the typical Korean kid who craved tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), gochujang (red pepper paste), or fueled by buldak ramen. However, that story changed when I discovered this bubbling pot of flavor. Through it, I unlocked a new sense of Koreanness within myself.
When eating budae jjigae, my mouth is filled with different flavors and textures. My favorite highlight of the food is when the boiled sausage bursts softly in my mouth, revealing its tender meat. Then comes a spoonful of tangled noodles and smoky spam wrapped in tangy kimchi. But first, I always take a full scoop of warm, sticky white rice to prepare myself for the saltiness.
This warm pot of stew holds great significance in my family. Budae jjigae is a comforting, social dish meant to be cooked and shared straight from the pot (Ford). Also, it’s an easy dish. Even my dad, who doesn’t know how to cook, could pull it off perfectly with the right balance of spiciness and peppery kick. He made it for me often, so every time I eat it now, I think of my family. The meals weren’t about the skills, but the love and devotion put into them. During brutally cold winters or stressful AP exam weeks, that same warmth helped me push through.
People packed in The Seoul in Ann Arbor, the most convenient place to get budae jjigae near UM’s Central Campus (October 30, 2025). Photo by Jaeeun Lee.
A typical offering of Korean stews and banchan (side dishes) at The Seoul (October 30, 2025). Photo by Jaeeun Lee.
However, budae jjigae is more than a nostalgic comfort food. In fact, its history is full of sorrows and struggles, which is ironically, the opposite of the comfort it gives today. It was a desperate creation to sustain the lives of the many Koreans. The origin of budae jjigae dates back to the Korean War (1950-53), when the U.S. military began stationing in South Korea (Yoon). According to my grandma, who lived through the war, people were so desperate they ate anything they could find—even the pine tree bark. Out of that desperation came “army base stew,” made from smuggled American foods like “Spam, hotdogs, and ham” (Cho). My dad, a history professor, often told stories about how interpreters and cleaners at U.S. bases secretly traded these foods on underground markets. Once the main ingredients were gathered, locals added cheap ingredients they had—kimchi, onions, and gochujang—to mask the strong smell of the American meats and soften the sense of foreignness.
Despite the symbol of desperation linked to the origins, my generation enjoys this stew as a mainstream comfort food. Now, with the addition of ramen noodles, rice cakes, cheese, and bean sprouts, modern budae jjigae is known as an overflowing pot of guilty pleasure. In fact, due to the dish’s popularity, South Koreans today “produce and consume more spam”, one of the main ingredients of budae jjigae, “than anywhere outside the U.S.” (Yoon).
Ironically, budae jjigae has different associations within Koreans. This cultural fusion food represents the resilience of Koreans who had to survive through war and poverty. Yet, it's seen as an embarrassing history for others. To my generation, discussion around this dish is often detached from its historical context or conflict, presenting it instead as an exotic or nostalgic comfort food. On the other hand, for my grandparents’ generation, budae jjigae is most likely seen as a symbol of poverty and American imperialism. Oftentimes, calling it the “garbage stew,” many Korean elders have painful memories of “buying bags of garbage from the Americans to pick out the leftover bits of edible food,” which made them feel “humiliation, resentment, and gratitude all at once” (Woodcock).
Therefore, budae jjigae is more than just a meal. For me, it redefines what it means to be Korean. It reminds me of Korea’s dynamic history of survival and transformation. It shows our ability to transform struggle into strength. It carries the complexity of both pain and pride, past and present, conflict and comfort.
Works Cited
Cho, Grace M. “Eating Military Base Stew.” Contexts, vol. 13, no. 3, 2014, pp. 72–73. SAGE Publications, https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504214545759. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
Ford, Hyegyoung K. “Authentic Budae Jjigae (Korean Army Stew).” Beyond Kimchee, 17 Jan. 2017, www.beyondkimchee.com/korean-army-stew-budae-jjigae/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
Woodcock, Nicolyn. "Tasting the 'Forgotten War': Korean/American Memory and Military Base Stew." Journal of Asian American Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2018, p. 135–156. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2018.0005. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
Yoon, Hahna. “How a South Korean Comfort Food Went Global.” BBC News, BBC, 10 June 2020, www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200609-how-a-south-korean-comfort-food-went-global. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
Lee, Jaeeun. Photo of the Korean stews and banchan(side dishes) are on my table. 30 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
Lee, Jaeeun. Photo of a pot filled with budae jjigae. 30 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
Lee, Jaeeun. Photo of people packed in The Seoul. 30 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
AI disclosure: UMChatGPT was used to check grammar. The following prompt was used: “Check my grammar and punctuation mistakes.”
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