The Cafeteria

The high school cafeteria is a warm and inviting place serving traditional Korean delicacies at a low price to keep the future of the country up and running until they achieve those fighting test scores. Or at least that's what it says on the brochure. The average high school cafeteria is really nothing special, but the food is usually pretty good.

In the high school cafeteria there are long wooden tables spanning from one side of the room to the other, probably from eight to ten, with a long row of seats on either side (this can either be a very long bench or individual chairs). The floor is easy to mop up things from and is NEVER carpet (have you ever tried getting kimchi stains out from carpet?!) and the walls are adorned with educational posters and the food pyramid EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK.

The trays are usually disposable aluminium (quite flexible, be careful) but occasionally they can be washable plastic, and they almost always have five sections in them! Listen carefully – you always have to get your food dished up in the RIGHT part of your tray. I don't know why, but I think it is some kind of portion equality control.

This is how a Korean school lunch goes. There are three small sections at the top and two larger sections at the bottom. In the bottom left section there will be rice. Everyday, there will be rice – occasionally with seaweed, or red bean porridge (for winter), but don't expect anything else. Rice is essential in your Korean diet.

In the bottom right section there will be a soup or stew. This could be:

• Tteokguk – rice cake soup

• Gomguk – salt and beef soup (THIS IS ABSOLUTE YUMMINESS)

• Miyeokguk – seaweed soup

• Daktoritang – chicken, chilli and potato stew

• Galbitang – rib soup – though they probably won't get that much meat with it

• Kimchi jjigae – kimchi stew

Just don't expect anything special or fancy because the food in schools is meant to be cheap to an extent, so they won't be serving up Royal Court stews.

In one of your top little sections, what else could be there apart from KIMCHI! If you don't know what kimchi is, you are probably lost on this site, but I will tell you anyway. Kimchi is fermented cabbage with radishes and chilli peppers, left in a spicy, salty, tasty, garlicky, generally delicious sauce. Koreans eat it A LOT. With almost every meal.

In your other top sections there will be the daily dish that this changes, well, daily. I'm talking about:

• Bibimbap – mixed fried rice

• Calamari rings – fried in batter and usually served with soy

• Spaghetti in Western sauces – like bolognese

• Meat – just general meat, often unidentifiable, served with sauce like mustard

• More kimchi – can't get enough

• Ssam – meat with some kind of big leaf like lettuce

• Donkaseu – Korean 'tonkatsu' – deep fried breaded fish

• Tofu – served in garlic and chillies usually, noticing a spicy garlic pattern yet?

• Crab sticks – fried usually

• Sea squirt and fish skin – served together usually

• Jjim – Steamed marinated meat or fish

• Bean sprouts – bean sprout soup, cold bean sprouts, bean sprout noodles

As you see (in my opinion anyway) Korean school food is REALLY GOOD, and it's usually fresh and high quality. Apart from the unidentifiable meat. It's served by these women who look like they're about to handle radioactive metal, because they're in huge white outfits with aprons, white hats and masks. They wear rubber gloves and then extra gloves on top of those. So you know you aren't catching their latest common cold. The lunch ladies are also pretty friendly and cheerful. They usually say 'Annyeong!' when you pass them.

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