Frogs in Soy Sauce with Noodles

The only animal product she had in her mouth for a year after Kim Il-sung’s death was frogs. Her brothers caught them in the countryside, her sister-in-law cooked them in soy sauce, finely chopped them, and served them with noodles . According to Mrs. Song, they tasted delicious. She tried them for the first time in her life because Koreans had not eaten frogs before. Unfortunately, such an opportunity did not arise again. By 1995, virtually the entire frog population in North Korea had been wiped out. *

* Barbara Demick, “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea,” pp. 161-162

INGREDIENTS

• Frogs
• Soy sauce
• Noodles

PREPARATION

1. Clean the frog meat and stew it in soy sauce. Chop finely.
2. Serve with noodles.

The Regime of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is considered by the Western world to be the most totalitarian system in the modern world. In satellite images, this communist country appears as an unlit blot of darkness. The lights began to go out at the beginning of the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The failing economy and sick system fell into darkness. Power plants failed, and hungry people stole pieces of copper wire from power poles to trade for food.

In the 1990s, North Korea experienced one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our times. The famine lasted from 1995 to 1999 and was named the Arduous March. The Party’s propaganda campaign referred to a tale from Kim Il-sung’s time, described as a struggle against thousands of enemies at 20 degrees below zero, in heavy snowfalls and hunger, but with a red flag. Suffering was embedded in patriotic behavior, and the word “famine” was banned as it suggested government failure.

People began eating grass, and bark from trees ground into flour became a popular food product available at illegal markets. Human flesh also appeared. When the food distribution system collapsed, people showed incredible ingenuity in finding food. They learned how to process inedible plant species to make them edible. Squirrel nets were hung on balconies, and homemade traps were constructed for small animals. People, driven to desperation, searched for undigested corn remnants in animal dung. They also learned how to obtain rice grains and other edible ingredients from the sludge scraped from the floors of port warehouses where food products were stored.

Famine became a tool of punishment and a way to deal with Kim Jong-il’s political opponents, who were sent to labor camps where they quickly died from starvation. Regions where support for the regime was deemed low were deprived of food supplies. Foreign food aid was taken over by the State and distributed according to political criteria, rewarding behavior endorsed by the regime.

Despite the enormity of the disaster, top officials in North Korea lived in luxury, importing luxury goods from China and Europe. Hundreds of forced laborers worked as slaves in many countries, and their wages allowed the Korean Workers’ Party to live in luxury.

Approximately 2.5 million people died, and life expectancy decreased by an average of 6-7 years.

Since 2018, there have been reports of the country’s economic troubles, along with related hunger and malnutrition. The situation was worsened by pandemic-related restrictions and severe sanctions imposed on North Korea due to the lack of agreement on nuclear weapons. The authorities provide guidance on what citizens should eat in the face of shortages of basic products. Turtle meat and pheasant hunting are promoted.