It is a custom of the Korean people to spend Jongwoldaeborum, the fifteenth day of the first month by the lunar calendar, joyfully while sharing national foods together.
The national foods included ogokpap (boiled rice mixed with four other staple cereals), pokssam (wrapped rice), dishes made of nine kinds of dried greens and others.
They cooked and ate ogokpap on the day as they not only regarded it as good for health but also hoped for good crops of all cereals.
Generally, pokssam was rice wrapped in salted perilla leaves, dried aster leaves, bok choy kimchi leaves and so on. It has been called so as it is said that those who eat the rice on the day will be lucky.
The nine kinds of dried greens did not mean certain fixed greens but various kinds or lots of greens in relation to the numeral nine.
The kinds of the dried greens varied according to localities and they mainly included mushroom, bracken, broad bellflower root, flowering fern, aralia shoots and others, which were fried or seasoned as dishes.
It is said that eating such dishes on the day makes one resistant to summer heat and diseases all the year round.
In addition, there is also a custom of eating noodles for lunch on the 14th of the first lunar month.
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