As autumn deepens and the fields turn golden, one food comes to mind without fail: songpyeon. Songpyeon is not simply a holiday dish. It carries the full meaning of Chuseok — closing out a year of farming with gratitude to nature, remembering ancestors, and bringing scattered family members together in one place.
Exactly when songpyeon was first made is not known. Rice cakes filled with red bean paste appear in documents from the Goryeo Dynasty, and "Dongguk Sesigi," a late Joseon record of seasonal customs, notes the practice of shaping songpyeon from newly harvested rice at Chuseok for ancestral rites and visits to family graves.
Songpyeon was not eaten only at Chuseok. It was also made around the start of spring farm work, at various seasonal markers and for memorial rites. Chuseok songpyeon, in particular, was made with the first rice harvested that year. Shaping cakes from the new grain, offering them first to ancestors and then sharing them with family, expressed a farmer's sentiment: gratitude for another harvest brought in safely.
Traces of nature are in the name as well. "Song" means pine tree. Non-glutinous rice flour is kneaded, filled with sesame, beans, red beans, chestnuts or jujubes, shaped, and then steamed on layers of pine needles — hence the name. Within its small body, songpyeon also holds the character of each region and each household. Some families use sesame and sugar; others add fresh beans, red beans, chestnuts and jujubes, or work mugwort or ramie leaves into the dough for color and fragrance.
Yet the real taste of songpyeon may lie in the time spent shaping it together. On the eve of Chuseok, families would sit around a large table and make songpyeon. Giving thanks for the year's harvest, remembering ancestors who have gone before, and sharing food with the family beside you now — that is likely the deepest reason we have been shaping songpyeon for centuries.
