North Korea swaps soybean-based doenjang paste with wheat-based imitation

Read a version of this story in Korean 

North Korean authorities are providing the public with “foul tasting” wheat paste as a substitute for doenjang, the fermented bean paste that is a staple in Korean cuisine, residents told Radio Free Asia. 

Something magic happens in the traditional making of soy sauce: when the salty liquid is siphoned off the top, the urn it’s been fermenting in still holds a treasure. It is the pungent paste of legend, doenjang – a key ingredient in Korean soups, stews, sauces and even snack foods.

Doenjang is the subject of South Korean rap songs and tops ice cream dishes served at the Biden White House. 

The paste has been made on the Korean peninsula for millenia. But North Korea, which has been suffering from food shortages, recently boosted wheat production at the expense of other crops.

The result has been an excess of wheat and a shortage of soybeans, leading to the unlikely production of doenjang using the former. But people find it disgusting, a resident of the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Starting this year, wheat-based doenjang is being supplied to residents in the city of Sinpo instead of soybean-based doenjang,” she said, adding that most residents are saying they can’t eat it. “They say it is because the white color of the paste is unsightly and the taste is foul compared to the soybean-based doenjang which was previously supplied.”

She said the wheat paste’s quality is poor because the production process leaves part of the wheat husk in the final product.

“The eater ends up chewing on the husk and smelling a strange, sourish odor.”  

She said that even after a deadly famine in the 1990s, when the government had almost no food to give to the people, supplies of doenjang never completely ran out. But now, the situation is so dire that the government is trying to pass off an inferior substitute.

Because it is a fermented food, doenjang has a very long shelf life. An urn can be buried in the ground and used for several years. So in 2000, North Korea upscaled production, putting doenjang factories in every province and major city. 

But there’s a shortage of soybeans these days, the resident said.

“The doenjang you could get in the grocery stores up until last year was not 100% soybeans. It was mixed with corn,” she said. But even the corn-soybean mix doenjang was better than the wheat substitute, she said.

Wheat-based doenjang is unpalatable, a resident of the northeastern city of Rason told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. 

She said that the municipal government did give out soybean-based doenjang to residents, but only as a gift on the four major North Korean holidays–New Year’s Day, the two birth anniversaries of leader Kim Jong Un’s late father and grandfather, who were his predecessors, on Feb. 16 and April 15, and the founding day of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party on Oct. 10.

Additionally on holidays, residents of Rason “sometimes got small amounts of soy sauce,” she said. While the government-supplied doenjang was made with soybeans, it wasn’t as good as homemade varieties, “it was still good enough to eat.”

“Many families, who cannot make their own doenjang or buy it homemade from others, had relied on soybean doenjang supplied by grocery stores,” she said. The wheat doenjang is a poor substitute, they say.  

“Many people say it is too salty and stinks because it is not stored properly,” she said. “They wish that they could just get doenjang made from soybeans.”

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.