While I don't particularly enjoy spicy food, I am still willing to plop some spicy pepper sauce onto my bibimbap because of the mixture of flavors. I could eat bibimbap nearly every day!
Bibimbap is prepared by cooking the individual ingredients first. First, the bulgogi is marinated and then cooked in a frying pan. After the bulgogi, the vegetables are cooked one by one. Special care is taken to make sure none of the vegetables gets mixed up during cooking because bibimbap is supposed to be displayed in a specific way, with each vegetable representing a certain color and meaning! Once the veggies are finished, rice is scooped into a bowl that is sometimes right off the stove so that the rice continues to cook. The vegetables are then arranged by color. The white vegetables are never next to the other white vegetables, and the colored vegetables, like carrots or zucchini, are placed opposite each other. A fried egg is cooked last and plopped right on top of all of the other ingredients. The person who is served bibimbap is usually the one to mix it!
The ingredients of bibimbap are connected to the local environment because most of the vegetables come from local farmers and producers! The ingredients can also differ depending on what vegetables are in season. Some vegetables may be more likely to end up in a bibimbap dish if they are perfectly ripe and easily available in local markets.
