삼계탕(蔘鷄湯)의 연원과 발달 배경에 관한 연구

Abstract

This study focuses on samgyetang, which is recognized as one of Korea’s signature dishes. This study traces the origin of samgyetang completed with a unique combination of ginseng, an expensive medicinal herb, and grains cooked together in the stomach of a chicken. It is nearly impossible to concretely pinpoint the origins and development of a specific food. However, based on the logic that the formation of a community’s food culture involves both material and ideological aspects, I attempted an integrated tracing of developmental history that spans food culture history, oriental medicine history, and art history. From the ideological perspective of the development of soup dishes, a distinguishing trait of Korean food culture, I examined the background that allowed the development of samgyetang in Korea by contemplating the oriental medicine ideology of alimentotherapy in ideological aspects as well as the material aspects of how the expensive medicinal ingredient ginseng could be used as a food ingredient. First, the oriental medicine ideology of dietary treatment was behind the incorporation of tang and gom into everyday meals, as evidenced by terms related to soup such as tang, goeum, go, and baeksuk. In the context of samgye, these terms were all used as names for food with medicinal connotations, and the relationship between them makes it possible to trace the origins of Samgyetang to some extent. In addition, the key ingredient ginseng was directly affected by the change in supply and demand caused by the success of artificial cultivation in the late Joseon Dynasty. Through samgyetang, this study sought to provide a framework for understanding the influence of material aspects of resource availability and ideological aspects of health and medicine in shaping Korean food culture. This study confirmed that even before the specific term “samgyetang” was used, the food equivalent to samgyetang had been eaten on the Korean Peninsula for a long time.