The story
A soy-sauce version of stir-fried rice cakes was a dish of the Korean royal court and noble homes. The fiery red street snack is credited to Ma Bok-rim of Sindang-dong in Seoul. The story goes that in 1953, at the opening of a Korean-Chinese restaurant, she dropped a rice cake into a bowl of jajangmyeon, the black bean noodles, liked the taste, and began cooking rice cakes in a sauce of gochujang chilli paste, selling them in Sindang-dong. The spicy version spread outside schools in the late 1960s and 1970s, helped by cheap factory-made gochujang and wheat rice cakes. Sindang-dong still has a whole tteokbokki street.
Rival claims
An older soy-sauce version was a royal court dish; the red gochujang street version is credited to Ma Bok-rim of Sindang-dong, Seoul.
Also known as topokki, tteok-bokki, ddukbokki, 떡볶이, spicy rice cakes.
On the Meridish menu
Tteokbokki was the street food course on menu No. 16 on October 16, 2026. Its clue in the game, which hints at the place without naming it:
Chewy rice cakes simmered in sweet, fiery chilli paste. A woman here first cooked them this way in 1953, after tasting a rice cake that fell into black-bean noodles.
In Meridish, every dish is pinned to the town or city most widely credited with creating it. A guess within 25 km scores all 100 points. How scoring works.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tteok-bokki
- koreajoongangdaily.com/opinion/how-spicy-red-tteokbokki-became-a-national-street-food/12531324
Food history is often disputed. Think we've pinned it in the wrong place? Tell us at hello@meridish.com, ideally with a source.
