Bibimbap: Korea's Mixed Rice Bowl, Explained

Bibimbap is a Korean rice dish. It is served as warm white rice topped with seasoned vegetables and chili paste. Egg and sliced meat, usually beef, are common additions, and everything is stirred together just before eating.

What the name means

The name joins two words: "bibim" means mixing, and "bap" means cooked rice. In other words, bibimbap is simply mixed rice.

A dish with an unknown beginning

Nobody knows exactly where bibimbap comes from. One theory is that it grew out of the custom of mixing the food offered at an ancestral rite, known as jesa, into a single bowl before eating it.

Everyday habits may have played a part as well. Ordinary people ate it on the eve of the lunar new year, and farmers ate it during the farming season because it was the easiest way to feed many people.

The dish's earliest recorded name was hondon-ban, found in Hanja texts. A Hangul spelling of the name first appears in an encyclopedia from 1810. The first known recipe is in the Siuijeonseo, an anonymous cookbook from the late 19th century.

What goes into the bowl

Many vegetables can go into bibimbap. Common choices are:

• Cucumber
• Zucchini
• Radish
• Mushrooms
• Bellflower root
• Seaweed
• Spinach
• Soybean sprouts
• Bracken fern stems

The South Korean version adds sesame oil, red pepper paste and sesame seeds.

Regional and special versions

Jeonju, Jinju and Tongyeong in South Korea are known for their own versions. Pyongyang, in the North, and Jeonju are the most famous regions for the traditional dish.

• Jeonju bibimbap: the rice is cooked in beef shank broth and finished with sesame oil. The city also holds a bibimbap festival every year.
• Jinju bibimbap: also called hwaban, meaning "flower bowl", for the colorful arrangement of its toppings.
• Dolsot bibimbap: served in a very hot stone pot, where a raw egg cooks against the sides. Sesame oil on the bottom of the pot turns the rice that touches it into a crisp golden crust called nurungji.
• Hoedeopbap: bibimbap topped with raw seafood such as flounder, salmon, tuna or octopus.

The stone bowl is credited to a Jeonju restaurant owner, who developed it in 1969 to keep the dish warm for longer.