The respected Comrade
"The great President
Loach soup is a special national dish, and to make it, we put loach and some other ingredients together into water and boil it for a while to make it thick. It is also called a "chutang".
In the "Koryodogyong" (1124), there is a record that loach was used to make a dish and in the "Rimwonsipryukji"(1825), loach was said to be a mudfish for it lived in turbid ditch water and it was processed to be eaten. This means that it has been used as cooking stuff for a long time in Korea.
For its high nutritious value, from olden times, it has been used not only for build-up such as recovering patients' energy, helping children grow up, strengthening bones and so on, but also for the alternative for soup.
As mentioned above, the loach soup, which has high medicinal effect and our Korean nation has long enjoyed, became such a well-known special food of Kaesong to our people, and it is marked with hearty story.
On September 14th, Juche 61(1972), busy giving field guidance to various sectors of Kaesong, President visited the newly built department store of the city.
President went up to the second floor giving a careful guidance and he asked one of the accompanying officials unexpectedly, who was of Kaesong origin, what the main special food of Kaesong was.
He hesitated at the unexpected question, and answered unconfidently that it might be sangbap.
He asked him again what sangbap was.
President listened to his story and said that it was not a special food, and that things like the cold noodle of Pyongyang deserved to be called a special food.
Hearing another official saying that the special food of Kaesong might be the beef and rice soup, President gave him a light rebuff, claiming that it belong to Seoul.
Meanwhile, he went round the department store and visited the newly built Janamsan Hotel. When he reached the lounge on the third floor of the hotel, he asked the officials again about the food the people of Kaesong loved to eat.
Officials named various national dishes in Kaesong as far as they knew.
But President was satisfied with none.
While giving a restless field guidance, President met the elderly people who had been living in Kaesong for a long time, and acquainted himself with the special products and special food of the place.
Meanwhile, he confirmed the special food of Kaesong and was really satisfied.
He told officials that there was a loach soup in Kaesong, which was boiled loach admixed with bean curd.
He told them that every single dish that the people of Kaesong had eaten in the past should be discovered and that the people would enjoy the soup if it would be served in a newly built restaurant at the foot of Mt. Janam.
The officials were impressed with surging emotion.
(He is always busy with state affairs. How could he be even deeply concerned with the special food of Kaesong that we have not known up to now!)
The more they looked up to President, the more they were impressed.
President found the traditions of the Korean nation including our national food, the processing method, raw materials and seasonings and containers.
As seen above, loach soup, one of the special food of Kaesong which had been neglected by people for a long time, get well-known throughout the world again under the care of President, who values our national heritages.
After his visit, the new restaurant specializing in Kaesong special food was built at the foot of Mt. Janam.
