Caveat: 홍삼

pictureKoreans love their ginseng (인삼 [in-sam]). It’s a matter of both tradition and national pride (not to mention a profitable national industry, too), and they strongly believe in ginseng’s curative and health-supplementing properties – and then there’s the aphrodesiac cult that surrounds it.

Yesterday when visiting Curt, he bought me a gift of Red Ginseng Extract. The “red” in red ginseng (홍삼 [hong-sam]) refers not to a subspecies of the plant but rather to a result of a specific curing process involving steaming and sun-drying.

The extract comes in little foil envelopes, which you open and then you squeeze the juice out into your mouth. So I got a “one month” set, 30 individual-dose envelopes (see picture below) that I’m supposed to take once-a-day. I opened and took my first extract this morning.

Like most forms of alternative medicine, I harbor my scepticisms. But red ginseng as an anti-cancer agent actually has a double-blind-study paper trail (mostly the work of fanatical Korean scientists trying to justify their traditional medicine – but still) where at least some of the studies have not been rejected on methodological grounds by the established global medical community. And there’s not any evidence of harm from red ginseng. So I figured, what the hey – I’m becoming Korean, right?

Straight up red ginseng extract has a strong earthy taste. I have sometimes described it as “dirt flavored.” Being charitable, I would describe it as similar to the aftertaste of strong maple syrup, but with absolutely zero of the sweetness. It’s not horrible, anyway. I had some red ginseng flavored cooking vinegar that went well in certain savory concoctions that I used up a few months back.

Anyway, because Koreans take their Red Ginseng so seriously, it comes packaged (and priced!) like a luxury good (see picture above). I think Curt spent way too much money on this gift – let’s just say, it’s more expensive than an outpatient visit to the cancer hospital by a factor of about 500 (see yesterday’s post).

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