[Food]

[Food] Goguma Pizza (Sweet Potato Pizza, 고구마피자)

When any culture of food flows into a country, it always give birth to a new culture which can be slightly or totally different from the original :)

No country (except Greece and Iran) would deny that the modern form of pizza was born in Naples, Italy in the medieval era. Every country which has imported a culture of pizza has developed their own pizza, including Korea which uses various ingredients including kimchi and Korean-style paste.

Sweet potato was brought into the Korean peninsula more than 400 years ago, and Koreans created pizza with it during the 1990s i  Seoul. They topped pizza with tomato paste, cheese, some vegetables and a creamy sweet potato moose.

It could happen because sweet potato is one of the most popular vegetables in Korea. People usually steam or bake it for the best taste. It tastes like old pumpkin or sweet chestnut, and goes very well with kimchi which is salty, spicy and sour.

Sweet potatoes have been worked on by scientists and farmers so they can control their hardness and sweetness by underground ripening before harvest. For most sweet potato moose, pizza makers use fully ripened sweet potato which has a very soft and sweet flesh.

You would say sweet potato doesn't go well with tomato paste and cheese, but you are wrong. The saltiness of tomato and sweetness of sweet potato creates one of the best combinations of taste on pizza dough.

Cheese, sweet potato and chopped onion

Sliced sweet potato, sweet potato sauce & moose, black sesame

Some people don't like sweet potato pizza because it's neither classic nor overly stodgy. But it is true that every Korean pizza place offers sweet potato pizza on their menu. Moreover, it's one of Koreans' most beloved pizza that people of every age can enjoy.

I'm sure that you can't find sweet potato pizza in your country's pizzeria, but if you ever visit Korea then try a piece of it :) You may like it.

Bon Appétit!