Pyongyang, January 22 (KCNA) — Korean toffee making is a part of the intangible cultural heritage of the DPRK.

It is a chewy sweet that was made by our ancestors.

In their daily life, they found that the germinated barley malt decomposes the starch of grains into sugar, and, on this basis, they mixed the barley malt into boiled rice or gruel to ferment it. And then they pressed the liquid from the sack containing the mixed things, and boiled it down into the Korean toffee.

According to a historical record, the glutinous-rice toffee is most tasty, for being made by mixing the malty powder into the glutinous rice gruel and boiling it down with pepper, ginger and roasted sesame.

There are two kinds of Korean toffees. One is a soft toffee and the other is a hard toffee.

The soft toffee was used to prepare various dishes and make them more palatable, and the hard one was a snack food for children.

According to what is mixed, the variety of the toffee was divided into radish, pumpkin, jujube, chestnut, walnut, beans, sesame and pine nuts toffees.

Since the olden times, maize toffee has been the specialty of Phyongan and Kangwon provinces, radish toffee the specialty of Hwanghae Province, and potato toffee the specialty of Hamgyong Province.

Many customs related to toffee have been handed down.

Koreans had a custom of making white taffy as well as various foods on the lunar New Year’s Day.

Among the customs are taffy-related games, stories and proverbs.