[Delightful FTA] Why Hongtak Restaurant Is Thriving

The human palate is truly mysterious. How else can we describe our taste for taking perfectly fine fish, fermenting it until it reeks, and then eating it, if not mysterious? I’m talking about skate.

Eating fermented skate—aged so much that the ammonia can strip the roof of your mouth—together with boiled pork and makgeolli is called hongtak. That skate, famously said to have been enjoyed by former President Kim Dae-jung, was until recently something only gourmets or the especially adventurous would try. Partly because of its pungent smell, but also because catches were so limited, it was so expensive that a single fish could cost over 1 million won.

These days, however, moderately fermented skate is commonly included in mid-range Korean set menus. Given how expensive it used to be, that would have been unthinkable in the past. And that is not all. It is now easy to buy at discount stores, and as you walk down the street, you cannot help but notice the growing number of restaurants with signs advertising hongtak.

A major reason for this was the FTA with Chile. In Chile, skate is said to be a cheap fish. Once the barriers to trade were opened through the FTA, Chilean fishermen naturally began exporting their domestic skate to Korea to make money. That was good news for Korean consumers as well.

By old standards, skate was such a delicacy that it was fit for a king’s table. But with the large-scale inflow of Chilean skate, hongtak is becoming a popular food. Frozen Chilean skate can now be bought almost anywhere for 100,000 won per fish, and domestic skate has also become cheaper, with top-grade fish falling to around 600,000 won. The Korea-Chile FTA made it possible for anyone to enjoy hongtak.

And it is not only consumers who are pleased by Chilean skate. As skate consumption has increased, many jobs have been created as well. Most of the new hongtak restaurants that have sprung up on the streets are likely creating new jobs. New jobs must also have been created to handle the increased trade and distribution of skate. Of course, compared with the days when a single skate cost 1 million won, the income of skate fishermen may have fallen.

But from the standpoint of society as a whole, the import of cheap Chilean skate is generating benefits more than sufficient to make up for that.

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Original title: [유쾌한 FTA ] 홍탁 식당이 번창하는 사연

Author: Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

Date: 2007-06-20

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=20&idx=10689