Bread Ritual

The Bread Ritual is a traditional ritual performed by the Jin, which involves weighing and combining three ingredients, mixing, kneading, then dry-frying small rounds of bread dough, which puff up into bite-sized, crisp pockets of bread known as 'Bolko'.

They are traditionally made with flour, water and salt:

• The three ingredients represent the physical aspects of life.

- The flour represents the physical self

- The water represents the physical world in all its fluidity and transience.

- The salt represents the 'other' i.e. Other people with whom you interact.

• The kneading of the dough then represents the spiritual, infusing the physical with the means to exist meaningfully.
• The cooking in a hot skillet represents the trials of life that we face.
• The eating of the bolko is then representative of death - which is the purpose of the whole process.

Plain bolko are often made in private family bread rituals on a weekly or monthly basis, but celebratory bolko are often made for special occasions - with bolko vendors popping up around Jin-populated areas in recent years selling bags of flavored and/or stuffed bolko as a cheap, convenient and fun street food.