War-Era Staple · Pork Bone Soup
Dwaeji Gukbap
Photo: LWY / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Busan's Seomyeon district has a well-known dwaeji gukbap alley where several restaurants stay open around the clock, serving late-night drinkers and early commuters alike.
Pork bones are simmered for hours into a milky white broth, ladled over rice with slices of boiled pork, and finished at the table with shrimp sauce, chives, and kimchi. It's sold everywhere from market food stalls to 24-hour diners across Busan.
Why it's made this way: The usual story is that refugees who fled south during the Korean War, unable to afford proper cuts of meat, cooked down pork bones, including some left over from U.S. military supplies, into a cheap, filling soup — a wartime survival dish that became Busan's defining comfort food.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
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