Gimbap (Rice Wrapped in Seaweed)

Gimbap (usually spelled Kimbap) is Korea's most popular and nutritious convenience meal. You can find it sold everywhere: picnics, schoolchildren's lunch boxes, street venders, and convenience stores. A layer of cooked rice is spread over a square piece of gim (dried laver). Various ingredients (including ham, sausage, spinach, cucumber, crab meat, carrots, and radishes) are thinly sliced and placed on top. The laver is rolled into a tube, sliced into sliced pieces, and seasoned with sesame seeds. The idea was borrowed from the Japanese during the colonial period, but Korean Gimbap is slightly different. How to eat: Each roll is sliced into bite-sized pieces. Eat one at a time with chopsticks. If you eat at a street vender, sometimes you have to use a tooth pick instead of chopsticks.