From bingsu to sashimi, popularity of cup foods going strong in South Korea

SEOUL - With the seasons changing, a new “bingsu in a cup” trend is gaining popularity among young Koreans gearing up to survive the infamously humid and hot summer.

Offered mostly by low-priced coffee joints like Mega MGC Coffee, Compose Coffee and Ediya Coffee, the novelty dish packs all the regular features of the snack in a plastic cup usually used for drinks: frozen milk or cream, sweetened red beans, bite-sized rice cakes, syrup of your choosing, and of course, the chunk of shaved ice that makes it one of the most popular summertime snacks here.

Cup bingsu is just the latest in a long line of popular snacks and meals to be packaged in a cup.

What may sound like a Wall-E-type dystopian nightmare on paper is actually quite an enjoyable and affordable form of food in South Korea, expanding its scope from the time-proven cup noodles to cup bap (rice), cup tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) and apparently just about anything, within the palms of your hands.

Low-price and accessibility

Bingsu is rarely considered a dessert for one because of its price and size. Sulbing, one of the most popular bingsu joints, offers its most basic injeolmi bingsu (bingsu with bean powder-coated rice cake) at 9,900 won (S$9.20). Served in a large bowl, it is an optimal snack to share with a friend.

But the price for cup bingsu is usually in the 4,000-won range, rarely going above 6,300 won. This makes it an ideal snack to enjoy by oneself.

The affordability of a dish for one has been the main appeal of cup foods here since the grandfather of modern-day cup meals, cup ramen, was first introduced in Japan. Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese-Japanese man who made and lost his fortune in World War II, famously invented instant ramen and packaged it in a cup – known as Cup Noodles – to appeal to the international market.

In 1972, Korean food and beverage company Samyang Foods launched the first localised version of Cup Noodles in South Korea, and it rapidly garnered popularity in the ensuing decades, particularly with the introduction of convenience store franchises in the mid-1990s.

Another popular cup dish is cup bab, a cup version of rice with toppings that was born as a street food in Noryangjin-dong, in the Dongjak district of Seoul. Noryanjin in the 2000s enjoyed its heyday as a centre for aspiring civil servants, with countless private academies offering courses for the government service entrance exam.

The cram-school students sought dishes that were cheap and quick, which was addressed by street vendors selling cup bab. With rice being the main source of carbohydrates for Koreans, cup bab sold at around 2,000 won and was a welcome change from the cheap sandwiches and hamburgers that they had traditionally consumed.

Cup-bab vendors in Noryangjin today are not nearly as prominent as before, but the once-popular dish has found its way into convenience stores in their stead. Cup bab is now sold inside wrapped cup-shaped containers, which can be stored for longer and heated instantaneously for eating.

Some consider the new form of cup bab a hit or miss, as the dried toppings and its new price tag are hardly an exact recreation of the once wildly popular dish.

Around the same time adult students were having cup bab, their younger counterparts were filling their bellies with cup tteokbokki. Eateries and street vendors started selling the popular snack in small portions to children with limited pocket money, but it has since found its way into official menus.

Perhaps the most unusual cup food is none other than sushi, such as the “cold sashimi soup with beef tartare” offered by a local franchise. The small-portion dish is a limited-time offer only for the summer, though affordability is questionable for a meal priced at 13,900 won.

Health issues?

The styrofoam containers that cup foods are often packaged in have fuelled a widespread urban legend that pouring in steaming hot water could release harmful substances.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety debunked this belief in 2021, having experimented on 49 types of disposable containers using polystyrene products to see if applying heat would lead to such results. Though a small amount of styrene was detected in eight containers, it was deemed too low an amount to impact human health.

The only issue the ministry found with the containers is that they could break when heated.

While the containers may not be harmful, there have been several studies indicating that cup foods do not provide balanced nutrition.

In 2020, researchers from the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) analysed cup bab provided by 13 major food and beverage companies. Their findings revealed significantly higher sodium levels in these foods relative to their overall calorie content.

Specifically, each cup bab on average provided about 21.7 per cent of the recommended daily calorie intake — which the research said was about 2,000 calories — but 50.3 per cent of the recommended daily sodium intake of 2,000 milligrams.

As with the study by the Food and Drug Safety Ministry, no significant level of harmful substances was detected in the containers.

Cup bingsu contains a significant amount of sugar, with one serving provided by Mega MGC Coffee packing 86g of sugar per cup. The World Health Organisation recommends that sugar intake be no more than 10 per cent of one’s energy intake, or about 50g daily.

Tteokbokki and instant noodles are not considered healthy foods due to their high carbohydrate content and disproportionately high sodium levels relative to calorie count.

As such, it is recommended that one should not regard cup foods as their main energy intake and balance their diet with nutrient-rich foods.

The KCA study concluded by saying that one should not eat cup bab with other salty foods like cup ramen, and advised people to eat food with sufficient potassium to help release the excess sodium. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK