It's Actually Called "Meat Camp"

The following is a pre-post of my planned trip to Daegaya Meat Camp from 17-18 July 2010. See related posts (Daegaya Meat Camp, Sausages and Flies) for additional information and photos.

It's called a "meat camp," the first of its kind, as far as I'm aware, at least in this country. Located on the grounds of a defunct elementary school in the northern region of Gyeongsang-Bukdo, just outside of Daegu, the Daegaya Meat Camp is a venue featuring a kitchen facility where campers can learn how to make sausages (see photo at bottom) (see link for additional photos). The site, which also features a wading pool for kids, is ostensibly for families and other car campers. Although this type of camping isn't really keeping in line with the backcountry theme of this blog, I will discuss all of my trips if only to show the variety of locations and activities available in Korea.

The plan is to depart from Seoul by car on Saturday morning (July 17), set up camp by lunchtime, make some sausages, eat them for dinner, drink alcohol, watch a few episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond on my iPhone, sleep, wake up in time for brunch, pack up, and depart for home by early afternoon. In addition to my own family, I anticipate that our group will consist of another 12 or so campers, friends and other acquaintances with whom I've gone car camping on several occasions, people I haven't seen in months due to my involvement with the Backcountry Camping group.

When I first began cooking at home, I realized that making a dish from scratch can often lead to conflicting interests from the respective perspectives of the chef and the diner. On the one hand, the chef wants to make the dish taste good, but this sometimes requires what may seem to be excessive amounts of butter, oil, sugar, and salt, as well as flavor enhancers, such as commercial spice packets (that include MSG and other chemical additives). As a semi-health-conscious diner, I try to make wise choices in what I eat, especially at restaurants, but I'm resigned to the fact that anything that tastes good is likely not to be very good for me.

And there's the old adage that one should never witness how sausages or laws are made. The analogy, which is intended to illustrate how sordid the process of enacting laws can be, assumes as a universally accepted premise that the sausage-making process is disgusting and thus better left in the dark--no matter how much we may appreciate the end product.

I'm excited by the prospect nonetheless.