In South Korea, it’s said that eating a bowl of rice-cake soup on New Year’s Day marks the passing of a year, and turning a year older. The rice cakes, white as snow and shaped like little coins, symbolize purity and fortune; the long, cylindrical logs from which these rounds are cut, called garae tteok, are said to represent long life. But the one thing that can make rice-cake soup even more stimulating are mandu, Korean dumplings which bob around the bowl, creating an occasion out of an otherwise humble soup. Tap the link in our bio for @ericjoonho’s firecracker version of kimchi tteok mandu guk. Photographer: @chrisrsimpson. Food stylist: @maggie_ruggiero. Prop stylist: @sophiaelenipappas.