In Korea, traditional Korean holiday food is closely tied to specific days and occasions. Tteokguk comes to mind on Lunar New Year, songpyeon during Chuseok, patjuk on the winter solstice, and miyeokguk on birthdays. Noodles have also long been associated with weddings and large celebrations.
These foods are connected with ideas such as welcoming a new year, wishing for good fortune, marking the change of seasons, or celebrating an important moment in someone’s life. For many Koreans, they are also simply familiar foods that have been eaten repeatedly since childhood.
I grew up eating tteokguk on New Year’s Day, and when I was young, my family would sit together and make songpyeon for Chuseok. Some of these foods still feel closely tied to a particular holiday, while others have become completely normal everyday meals. That difference is also part of how these traditions exist in Korea today.
Modern holiday traditions have changed in other ways too. Before Seollal and Chuseok, for example, Korean holiday gift sets have become another familiar part of the season.
Tteokguk for Lunar New Year
Eating tteokguk on Seollal, or Lunar New Year, remains one of the most familiar Korean holiday food traditions. Thin slices of garaetteok, a long white rice cake, are cooked in broth and usually served with toppings such as egg, seaweed, and meat.
The white color of the rice cake has traditionally been associated with beginning the new year with a clean start, while the long shape of garaetteok is sometimes linked with wishes for longevity. The round slices are also often compared to old coins and connected with hopes for prosperity. These interpretations may not have carried exactly the same meaning in every period or household, but tteokguk has long been associated with welcoming the new year and wishing for good fortune.
When I was young, I often heard adults say that you had to eat a bowl of tteokguk to become one year older. Children naturally turned that into a joke and asked whether eating two bowls meant getting two years older.
In my own home, however, tteokguk is not limited to New Year’s Day. I make tteok-manduguk quite often when there is not much else to cook. If I have rice cakes and dumplings in the freezer, it is an easy meal to prepare without needing many side dishes. If I had to name one dish I am especially comfortable making, this would probably be one of them.
Even so, a bowl of tteokguk on the morning of Seollal still feels different from the same dish on an ordinary weekday.
Songpyeon for Chuseok
Songpyeon is one of the foods most strongly associated with Chuseok, Korea’s autumn harvest holiday. These small rice cakes are usually shaped into half-moons and filled with ingredients such as sesame seeds, beans, or red bean paste before being steamed, traditionally over pine needles.
Songpyeon is closely connected with the harvest season and with giving thanks for the year’s crops. Many symbolic interpretations of its half-moon shape have also been passed down, but to me its strongest meaning comes from the holiday itself.
When I was a child, my family used to sit together and make songpyeon by hand. Adults usually made neat, evenly shaped rice cakes, while the ones made by children came out in every possible size and shape. Comparing them was part of the fun.
These days, good songpyeon is easy to buy from rice-cake shops, and fewer families seem to make large batches at home than they did in the past. I am the same. I am much more likely to buy songpyeon now than make it myself.
Because of that, songpyeon reminds me not only of Chuseok but also of an older holiday scene: family members sitting together around a table and making food with their hands. Songpyeon is not the only food closely associated with the major holidays. Korean jeon, or savory pancakes, are also a familiar part of many Seollal and Chuseok tables.
Surichwitteok on Dano and Patjuk on the Winter Solstice
Some traditional seasonal foods are less common in everyday Korean households today than tteokguk or songpyeon.
Surichwitteok was traditionally eaten on Dano, one of Korea’s old seasonal holidays. It is made with surichwi, a wild plant whose leaves give the rice cake a distinctive color and aroma. Some versions were stamped with a wheel-shaped pattern and were also known as charyunbyeong.
Dano is no longer observed as widely in ordinary households as Seollal or Chuseok, so surichwitteok is not something most Koreans necessarily prepare at home every year. Today, people may be more likely to encounter it at a traditional market, regional festival, or cultural event.
Dongji, the winter solstice, is associated with patjuk, or red bean porridge. The red color of beans was traditionally believed to ward off harmful influences, and older customs sometimes involved placing small amounts of red bean porridge around the home as a form of protection.
Patjuk is often served with small glutinous rice balls called saealsim. A warm bowl of red bean porridge also suits the season well, arriving at one of the coldest and darkest times of the year.
Not every Korean family makes patjuk at home for Dongji today. Some still do, while others may buy a bowl from a market or restaurant, and many people do not observe the day at all.
Why Koreans Eat Seaweed Soup on Birthdays
Miyeokguk, or seaweed soup, is one of the most familiar birthday foods in Korea. Asking someone, “Did you eat miyeokguk?” on their birthday does not sound unusual at all.
The tradition is closely connected to the custom of serving seaweed soup to women after childbirth. Because a mother traditionally ate miyeokguk while recovering after giving birth, serving the same soup on a child’s birthday came to connect the celebration of birth with remembering the mother as well.
That is why a bowl of miyeokguk on a birthday can feel more meaningful than its simple appearance suggests. When someone in the family cooks it for you in the morning, the message is often as ordinary as it is personal: they remembered that today is your birthday.
For me, miyeokguk is also an easy everyday soup. I cook it fairly often because you can make a good basic version with seaweed alone and add whatever suitable ingredients happen to be available in the refrigerator, such as beef or shellfish.
So birthday miyeokguk and an ordinary bowl of miyeokguk may look almost identical. What changes is not necessarily the food itself, but the day on which it is served.
Why Noodles Were Served at Weddings and Celebrations
The Korean name janchi-guksu literally means “banquet noodles.” In the past, noodles were commonly served at weddings and other large gatherings because they were practical for feeding many guests at once.
Long noodles also came to be associated with longevity and relationships that would continue for a long time. An older expression asking an unmarried person, “When are you going to feed us noodles?” was really a playful way of asking when they were going to get married.
Modern Korean weddings are much more likely to have buffet meals, so noodles are no longer the defining food of a wedding reception in the way they once could be. Still, the name janchi-guksu and expressions connecting noodles with marriage preserve part of that older food culture.
I make simple noodle soup at home fairly often. I can make broth with dried anchovies and kelp from the freezer, boil somyeon noodles, and finish the bowl with little more than kimchi and dried seaweed. These days, there are also convenient broth coins, powders, and liquid concentrates, so making the soup can be even easier.
At home, the noodle soup I make is often simpler than traditional janchi-guksu. Sometimes I use whatever is available and skip the usual toppings. But noodles that once had a strong connection with large celebrations have also become one of the easiest everyday meals to make.
Special-Occasion Foods Are Also About Memory
Some foods, like songpyeon, still make me think immediately of a particular holiday. Others, such as surichwitteok, have become much less visible in everyday life.
Some foods, like songpyeon, still make me think immediately of a particular holiday. Others, such as surichwitteok, have become much less visible in everyday life. Tteokguk, miyeokguk, and noodles still carry traditional meanings, but they are also common enough to appear on completely ordinary days. For a different side of Korean food culture, my Korean soul food guide looks at foods such as gimbap, tteokbokki, and bibimbap that are tied more to everyday life than special occasions.
Their older meanings have not disappeared. A bowl of tteokguk on New Year’s morning still feels different from the tteok-manduguk I make when I have nothing special planned for dinner. Miyeokguk cooked for someone’s birthday carries a different feeling from the same soup eaten on another day.
Songpyeon is perhaps the clearest example for me. I can buy it easily now, but seeing it around Chuseok still brings back memories of sitting with my family and making uneven little rice cakes by hand.
That may be why these foods continue to matter even as the way Koreans celebrate holidays changes. Their meaning does not come only from old symbolism. It also comes from the people, seasons, and moments we remember when we eat them again.
About the Author 🇰🇷
I live in South Korea and write about the small details of Korean life and culture that I experience and observe firsthand.
English is my second language, so I sometimes use tools such as Gemini and Google Translate to help with translation and editing. The experiences, observations, opinions, and cultural perspectives in my articles are my own, and I personally review and edit every article before publishing it.
My goal with Korea Core Info is simple: to share everyday Korea from a local perspective and help international readers discover things they might not always find in a typical travel guide.
I hope my stories and guides help you understand Korea a little better — not just as a place to visit, but as a place where people live their everyday lives.