미역국 (Miyok Guk)

This my friend is 미역국. 미역 (miyok) is Korean for seaweed and 국 (guk) is Korean for soup. So put them together and you have seaweed soup. While people in the west will enjoy a slice of cake on their birthday, Koreans celebrate the day of their birth with a steaming hot bowl of seaweed soup. I was told that since pregnant Korean women ate a lot of this in antiquity it became associated with birthdays. If that's the case I think I have to start celebrating my birth with watermelon, since that's what my mother craved while pregnant with the awesomeness that is me.