Hongeo-samhap

Fermented skate is documented in Jeong Yak-jeon's marine treatise Jasaneobo, written during his exile on Heuksando in 1814, which records that people of the Naju region ate aged skate and that its broth was prized for clearing the effects of drink. The fermentation itself is widely traced to the old Yeongsanpo river port: skate caught off Heuksando was shipped up the long Yeongsan River, and by the time the boats reached the inland market the fish had naturally ripened, so the inland trade grew up around the fermented form. The three-part samhap pairing of skate, boiled pork and aged kimchi is a later table custom — the rich meat and sour kimchi were added to temper the skate's pungency — though the exact date it became fixed is unrecorded.

The skate hits first: a sharp ammonia rush up the nose, then flesh that is soft yet faintly cartilaginous, almost chewy at the wing edges. The boiled pork belly arrives mild, warm and fatty, and the aged kimchi cuts through both with sour crunch — the three textures and the ammonia, fat and acid resolving into one balanced mouthful. A swallow of cool, slightly fizzy makgeolli closes it and rinses the burn. First-timers feel the alkaline sting in the sinuses; regulars chase exactly that.

Skate is a cartilaginous fish that regulates its body salts by storing large amounts of urea and trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) in its flesh. As the fish ages, bacteria such as Micrococcus break the urea down with the enzyme urease into ammonia (NH3); the TMAO becomes trimethylamine. The accumulating ammonia drives the flesh strongly alkaline — above pH 9 — which suppresses the ordinary spoilage and food-poisoning bacteria, so the skate ripens into a controlled fermentation rather than rotting. Traditionally the fish was packed in straw and held cool; the ammonia is what stings the nose, and the boiled pork and kimchi are deliberately chosen to buffer it.