Jaecheop-guk (Marsh Clam Soup)

Jaecheop arrives in the southern markets small enough to look like trouble, especially along the Seomjin and Nakdong when the water warms and the baskets are full. In Hadong I watched women tip them into enamel basins, all clatter and patience, because this soup begins before the fire. If the clams keep their river sand, the whole pot is lost.

This is not a soup to decorate. No gochujang, no anchovy broth, no spoonful of soup soy sauce to make you feel busy. The clams give a pale broth on their own, and your work is to keep it clean: purge, rinse, bring them up slowly from cold water, strain the broth, then season with salt measured in teaspoons instead of pride. The chives go in at the end so they bend but do not cook dull.

People know jaecheop-guk as haejang-guk (hangover soup), and it is good for that morning, but don't make it only when someone has behaved badly the night before. With rice and sharp kimchi, it is a quick weeknight bowl from the southern table, plain enough to punish carelessness and kind enough to reward patience. Cook the month you're standing in. If your market has no live, clean-smelling clams, make another guk tonight and wait.

Notebook 41 says the same sentence twice: salt after straining, chives last. My teacher would not let me forget it. A fistful of buchu (Korean garlic chives) is 60 grams in this pot, and now you do not have to guess.