Recipe for Pancake of Feudal Joson Dynasty (3)

-Hwajon (flower pancake)-

Hwajon is made by attaching several kinds of flowers or petals to glutinous rice flour dough and frying in in oil.

Its first record can be seen in Ho Kyun’s (1569－1618) book “Tomundaejak”.

This record introduced the foods for each season. That is, people took azalea and pear flower hwajons in spring, rose hwajon in summer and chrysanthemum hwajon in autumn.

The above record gives so detailed recipes of different seasonal hwajons that we can presume that such kinds of flower hwajons might have been there during Koryo Dynasty, too.

Later, the record of flower hwajons was introduced in several old books such as “Umsikjimibang”, “Tongguksesigi” and “Rimwonsipryukji” written during Feudal Joson Dynasty.

According to the old book “Umsikjimibang” written in the 17th century, the hwajons were made by mixing glutinous rice flour with a dash of buckwheat flour and floral leaves of azaleas and roses, kneading it, frying crisp the dough in the oiled pan and spreading honey on it.

According to the old book “Jubangmun”, the buckwheat flour and glutinous rice flour were mixed in the ratio of two to one, the mixture was kneaded and a lot of azalea petals were added to the dough.

In the books written after “Enlarged forest economy” of the end of the 18th century appears only the glutinous rice flour without buckwheat flour and there appears mung-bean flour in the book “Tongguksesigi” written in the 19th century.

According to the old books “Puinphilji (Housewives’ Handbook” or “Kyuhapchongso”, it is good to knead grain flour in light salt water and to add many floral leaves of azaleas and roses to the dough but, if many chrysanthemum flowers are put to the dough, hwajon tastes bitter.

In the 19th century, hwajon was widely eaten, too.

Of the hwajons of that time there was angelica hwajon, too

The reason why our people ate a lot of flower hwajon was that the foods with different kinds of flowers for each season were very peculiar in taste.

Our people loved hwajon as unique pancakes, for they were the foods that symbolize the seasons with flowers.

The old book “Haedongzukji” says that hwajon is very beautiful in color and very strong in fragrance.