Before coming over to Korea, all I heard about the food was 'It's delicious' and 'It's spicy". Both of these things are true! 'Korean Spice' directly translates into 'hot red peppers'. No variant whatsoever. If it's not in a red sauce or sprinkled with red flakes, it's probably tasteless (unless it's fish, of course).
What people neglected to tell me is that Koreans don't like anything sour or salty! Which is very odd, seeing as Kimchi, which is served with everything, is fermented and salted cabbage. You would expect it to be salty! Unfortunately, they smother it in - you guessed it - red peppers! so you can't really taste the salt.
If it's not spicy or bland, it's sweet. I'm talking about chips, popcorn, BRAN cheese... you name it (I'm serious about that last one). And Koreans go wild for it! I was walking through a convenience store tonight and found HONEY DORITOS!! I didn't even know those existed!
I've also tasted corn flavoured popcorn (I'll let that one sink in for a sec. It tasted like creamed corn), similar to our smart-pop minus the salty cheese. When you go to the movies, they sell flavour packs with the popcorn. In Canada, they sell flavoured salts... Not in Korea! They sell fruit flavoured packets. Imagine banana flavoured popcorn!
I have to hand it to them, though. Koreans don't do anything in moderation! An article to prove my point...
http://munchies.vice.com/articles/korean-honey-butter-chip-hysteria-has-created-a-snack-black-market
You can't understand how disheartening it is to open a bag of chips only to discover that your salty treat has been converted into a sweet... thing... yuck (but yum at the same time).
There are a few other discrepancies in the flavouring of products. You can't mix fruits. I'm in a land where strawberry-banana doesn't exist. MIND IS BLOWN. They think it's gross!
I would kill for some pretzels right now... or salt and vinegar chips!
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