Tteokbokki, an unpretentious dish of stir fried garae-tteok (cylinder shaped rice cake), eomuk (Korean fish cake) and vegetables in gochujang, is a popular Korean street food that has teased the tastebuds of locals and foreigners alike. Yet the fascinating fact about this home run snack has little connection with its lesser-known original creation. Unbeknown to many around the world, origins of stir-fried rice cakes can be traced back to Joseon dynasty where it was served as a snack in the royal court. Known as Gungjung Tteokbokki, rice cakes, beef and vegetables were stir fried in soy-based sauce instead.

‘So, how did a royal cuisine morph into this intense version that we are familiar with today?’ one might wonder. Introduced in the 1950s as an affordable snack, the ingredients and flavors hit all the right notes with the local palate. It caught on with popularity by the ‘70s, with an endless number of tteokbokki specialty shops establishing presence at the Sindang-dong Tteokbokki Street.

With the versality of gochujang sauce, incessant innovation of gochujang based tteokbokki continues with variations driven by trends and preferences and is only limited where imaginations stop. There is no stopping, with cheese, ramyeon, sundae (Korean blood sausage), gimmari (crispy seaweed rolls), and many more.