Guess Again

I was eating lunch today with my co-workers in the cafeteria, as usual. The food is almost the same every day: rice, a variety of soup, kimchi (I always leave it), some cold gross vegetable, and the main dish, which changes each day.

Today's main dish was spongy dark tube. "What is it?" I asked my co-teacher.

"Do you really want to know?" she said.

Did I really want to know?

"Y-yes," I said.

She said the Korean name for the food, then added, "Normally, it's pig intestines."

Stop.

"Normally," she continued. "But this isn't the real thing. This is an imitation of {Korean word} made from noodles and flour."

"Oh." Relief. Not pig intestines. Not monkey brains or sheep testicles. Just flour. Thank God. Then something occurred to me: "Why is it black if it's made from noodles and flour?"

"Well, in Korea we make flour from many other things. Like potatoes, for instance."

"Oh," I said.

"But that's not why it's so dark," she said. "It's dark because they put pig blood in it."