Miyeok-naengguk (Cold Seaweed Soup)

Miyeok-naengguk belongs to the heat of summer, when the rice is still warm but nobody wants a heavy soup beside it. At my mother's table it came out in a stainless bowl, cold enough to bead water on the outside, with cucumber cut thin and seaweed softened just enough to be tender. It was not a grand dish. That is why it needs to be written down.

The dish lives or dies by restraint. Dried miyeok (sea mustard) swells like it has been waiting all year, so measure it before soaking or you'll make a basin when you meant to make soup. The broth should be tart, lightly salty, and faintly sweet, not sour enough to pinch your eyes. The cucumber must stay crisp, which means salt it briefly and rinse it, then keep everything truly cold.

Notebook 19 says 12 grams of dried miyeok for four bowls. That looks too little in the hand. Trust the scale. 손맛 is real, the hand-taste our mothers trusted, and I still measure it so it can be handed on. Tonight this asks only for soaking, slicing, tasting, and patience in the refrigerator.