Ungjang (Braised Bear Paw)

History

In the classical East Asian culinary imagination, bear's paw (웅쟝, ungjang) stood among the rarest luxuries. The Confucian text Mencius pairs it with fish as two coveted things, then has the philosopher relinquish the fish to keep the bear's paw — an image that became shorthand for choosing the greater prize, and evidence of how highly the delicacy was ranked. Chinese tradition placed it among the "eight treasures" (八珍) fit for royal banquets, a prestige food associated with elite tables as far back as the Shang court. Its appearance in Jang Gye-hyang's Eumsik dimibang (c.1670) sets the delicacy in the kitchen of a 17th-century Gyeongsang yangban household, within the book's large fish-and-meat section. The recipe's own method — singeing or liming the paw to strip the hair, cleaning it, splitting between the toes with a knife, and grilling it brushed with soy sauce and oil after resting it overnight — survives essentially from this one source; the modern reading of that method rests on the Andong City documentation and should be attributed to it, not treated as broadly corroborated. As a food of extreme rarity and cost, bear's paw signalled standing rather than everyday eating.

Ingredients

• bear paw
• soy sauce
• oil

Instructions

1. Scald the hair off in boiling water (with hot stones), wash clean, salt, and rest one night.
2. Boil hard, then reduce the fire by half and simmer slowly until tender — bear paw is all sinew and resists softening.
3. Alternatively singe over a big fire as for ox feet; when the hair burns off and the sole lifts, peel it, wash, and simmer tender.
4. Split between the toes, brush with soy sauce and oil, and grill for an even better result.