Korea and Japan · Volume 55, The Jang, the Ferment and the Divided Table

Pyongyang Naengmyeon

Pyongyang and Pyongan

Illustration

Time: 15 minutes

Researched: 12 sources cited

North Korea's own state cookbook, the 2014 Joseon Ryori Jeonjip, specifies that the noodle's buckwheat content should exceed 80%. Korean commentary argues that South Korean restaurant versions, commonly an 80:20 buckwheat-to-starch ratio, plausibly preserve that ratio more faithfully today than noodles actually served inside North Korea, where potato-starch filler is reportedly common. This chapter treats that specific comparison as informed commentary, not measured fact, since no source found compared the two directly. North Korean preparation, as described in available sourcing, uses meat-based broths, sometimes darkened with starch and baking soda; South Korean restaurant preparation typically uses a clearer beef-and-bone broth with dongchimi, fermented radish water, blended in as a secondary element rather than the whole broth. Both traditions share an emphasis on soft, delicate noodles and clear broth, distinct from Hamhung's springy, spicy, potato-starch style below.

by Pyongyang and Pyongan

Liberation in 1945 split the peninsula at the 38th parallel; the Korean War (1950 to 1953) hardened that line into the DMZ that still stands. What this did to food culture is not abstract. The December 1950 Hungnam evacuation carried large numbers of civilians from Hamhung and the surrounding Hamgyong region south by sea as UN forces withdrew, and those refugees, settling above all in Seoul's Ojang-dong district and in the east-coast town of Sokcho, opened restaurants naming dishes after the hometown they had lost access to. What resulted, documented honestly by a South Korean government-affiliated cultural archive under the title "The Hamhung naengmyeon that doesn't exist in Hamhung," is a genuine, roughly seventy-five-year-old South Korean diaspora tradition in its own right, not an unbroken continuation of what Hamhung itself cooked. The same pattern produced abai sundae in Sokcho, a Hamgyong-style blood sausage renamed after the refugee village Abai Maeul, whose most famous local version is stuffed into squid rather than pork intestine, because squid, not pig, was what the Sokcho coast actually offered newly arrived refugees. Pyongyang naengmyeon followed the same road in reverse: Pyongyang-origin refugees who fled south, particularly through the Euljiro area of Seoul, opened restaurants recreating the dish from memory, and what a Seoul naengmyeon house serves today is a Southern lineage roughly as old as the division itself, not a live transcript of what Pyongyang eats now.

Read the history

As tradition built it

The South Korean restaurant style

Serves 4. Broth needs several hours or overnight; noodles, 15 minutes.

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

beef bones and brisket, for a long-simmered clear stock
to taste dongchimi (fermented radish water kimchi) juice, to taste
to taste soy sauce, salt, to season
400g buckwheat noodles, at least 80% buckwheat if available
for garnish cucumber, Korean pear, boiled egg, to garnish

Method

Simmer beef bones and brisket for several hours or overnight to build a clear, deep stock; skim regularly.
Chill the stock thoroughly, then blend it with dongchimi juice to taste, seasoning further with soy sauce and salt rather than sugar or chilli.
Cook the buckwheat noodles briefly, rinse in cold water to firm them and remove starch.
Serve noodles in the chilled broth, garnished with cucumber, pear and boiled egg.

What a modern chef changes

The broth's clarity treated as the actual technique.

No single numbered rung; a discipline of restraint that echoes Rung 4's respect for a slow, deliberate process

Method

Chill the finished stock overnight before serving, never serving it warm-cooled, since the dish's whole identity depends on genuine, thorough cold, not a merely tepid broth.
Balance the dongchimi juice by taste in stages, not all at once, since its sourness varies significantly by how the dongchimi itself was made, and this dish has no fixed ratio that survives that variation.
Serve immediately once the noodles are rinsed cold. Buckwheat noodles lose their texture quickly once dressed in cold broth; this is not a dish that improves by sitting.

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