A bed of hot, fluffy white rice. A colourful array of vegetables. Seasoned meat or fish. A dollop of gochujang (chilli paste), dwenjang (fermented soybean paste) or ganjang (soy sauce). Possibly an egg on top. Bibimbap is a quintessential Korean dish, but the options for what makes its way into the bowl are seemingly limitless — and its history and origin are equally contested. Some theorise that the dish’s name originates from ‘goldongban’, a word that comes from written Chinese characters — ‘goldong’ meaning ‘to mix’, just as ‘bibim’ does in Korean, while ‘bap’ means rice — and refers to combining different ingredients with rice in a bowl. Korea’s goldongban ritual was traditionally a way for people to clear out their homes at the end of a lunar year, in preparation for the next. Pantry leftovers would be thrown together, including grains and dried namul (plants), with the resulting dish named ‘goldongjiban’. The first written instance of this word appears in Dongkuksaesigi, a book by Hong Suk-Mo, first published in 1849, describing Korea’s regional customs.
The first known recipe for bibimbap — called ‘bubimbap’ at the time — was recorded at some point in the later part of the same century, in a cookbook calledwhich offered an overview of the foods available in the latter stages of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). It was most likely written by a woman from the aristocratic class; in around 1919, Sim Hwanjin, the newly appointed governor of Sangju, borrowed a copy and transcribed it.
