Gotgam(dried whole persimmon), a representative dried fruit of Korean origin, was a sweet snack when there were no decent munchies. It is a valuable food that was always present on the table of important days like holidays or sacrificial days. We will ruminate the meaning and values of gotgam to our people through various sides of gotgam that appear in literature.  

Gotgam with Peculiar Power 

It is not simple to make gotgam. Since we can taste its chewy sweetness only after giving it time and steady attention, it has been widely used for ancestral rites or feasts while representing “devotion.” Perhaps that is why gotgam, appearing in old folk tales as possessing the might to defeat a tiger, is a symbol of fear. This fable wittily expresses the folly of the strong and the wit of the weak, with a tiger as the main character, and its lessons have been passed down to this day. 

- Lee Miae

A starving tiger slowly came down a mountain looking for food. At the foot of the mountain, it went into the yard of a thatched house. A baby was crying inside loudly. “Here’s yeot(taffy), stop crying! Here’s yakgwa(honey cookie), stop crying!” said the mother, but the baby kept crying. So, the mother said, “The fox came. Stop crying!” But the baby’s cry continued. 
Then the mother said in a fierce voice, “The tiger came. Stop crying!” The baby’s cry became louder. Upon hearing the baby’s cry, the tiger wondered, “The baby’s not afraid of me?” 
“Here’s gotgam. Stop crying!” The baby stopped crying right away. The tiger was astonished. “What is gotgam, and how frightening it is to even make the baby stop crying right away?” The tiger, in fear of being caught by gotgam, hurriedly went inside a barn to hide and stayed still for a long time.

The power of gotgam, which used to chase tigers in the past, crosses over to modern literature, and appears as a poison to end the immortality of vampires. Author Chung Serang described gotgam as “undead” in “77 Size for Good,” one of the short stories in her book, <See You on the Rooftop>. 
Freshness is lost due to the loss of moisture, but the taste and nutrition are condensed more abundantly, and the storage capacity is also increased. So, the expression of being “undead” is peculiarly persuasive.     

- Chung Serang

On the night when the woman died, it told her that it would teach her “how not to disappear.” 
“You must not eat gotgam.”
“Hold on… it’s not the sun, the cross, silver, or stake?”
“No. Only the gotgam.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you really think tigers were frightened by gotgam? It is the only poison to the undead in the world. Some of the holy water the exorcists once used was the water with gotgam soaked in.”
“But it’s just dried persimmon.”
“Nobody knows why but perhaps it’s like this. Gotgam is good even though it’s dead. It is also undead, so I think it’s the principle of the undead not eating the same undead. You know, like the mad cow disease.” 

Korean Sentiment Permeated into Various Sides of Life  

Essayist Yoon Oh-young, who was famous for his work, <The Old Man Who Sharpened a Bat>, compared the essays with literary miscellany, and compared the literary qualities of the essays to gotgam. Just as you can enjoy the proper taste and subtle scent of gotgam only when the skin is peeled and trimmed several times to see its good shape, he also emphasized the need to ponder and edit an essay several times to remove the extravagant layers of sentences. 
Unlike chestnuts or peaches, gotgam, which had to be made manually with sincerity, are decorated under the eaves of our daily lives, and became part of a friendly rural landscape. Yoon Oh-young was a writer who wrote about the unique Korean sentiment in his essays. And he compared the essay to gotgam probably because gotgam was a representative food that symbolizes Korean sentiment.

- Yoon Oh-young

If a novel is compared to a night and a poem to a peach, an essay should be compared to a gotgam.
When all the trees have fallen leaves following the wind and frost at the end of late autumn, there are gotgams ripening red from the cold wind under the blue sky. Gotgam is beautiful. This is moonjang(sentence). Moonjang(sentence) originally means moonchae(the beauty of a sentence), so the colors of bluish green and reddish white are a sentence. This indicates the splendor and colors of texts. 
However, persimmon is not gotgam. The pretty skin must be peeled. Yuan Hongdao is right in saying that the extravagant layer of texts must be removed to produce real writing. The skin must be peeled and dried well. It has to be trimmed many times. Only then, the sugar inside will come to the surface and form a white layer. The white layer will not appear if the persimmon is not ripe or spoiled. When the white layer is on the surface, make it flat, or into a square or oval form. This is called forming a gotgam. Persimmons do not last long, but gotgam lasts long. An essay is gotgam created from this process. Then, what is the white layer on gotgam? It must be a sentimental and mysterious image. 
The beauty of an essay is in its ability to raise a problem without expressing a novel theme, or expressing emotion without presenting a poetic image. It expresses a mysterious sentiment enveloped in a vague mood like a glow. 

Printmaker Lee Cheolsoo communicates with the world by conveying his warm gaze on nature through his prints and words. His postcard collection, <Like Flowers During Life>, contains various writings, including enlightenment gained through life in the world, thoughts that come to mind, news from neighbors, and stories of hope in a troubled world. In his body of work, gotgam is introduced as the joy of sharing with neighbors and the sweetness of the fruit.

– Lee Cheolsoo

On gotgams the wife was given, black mold bloomed, instead of a white sugary layer. 
It is common to see tasty-looking orangey gotgam, but it’s not easy to make them at home, right? 
I rinsed them under running water to remove the mold, and quickly take them out and hang them to dry. 
They will be useful in making sujeonggwa(cinnamon punch) after drying them for three to four days. 
The flesh was sweet and delicious. 
Did I just save the life of a gotgam? What a day.

Persimmons are easily perishable due to their high moisture content. Our ancestors found a way to preserve persimmons for a long time by peeling, skewering, and drying them in the sun and wind. 
This wonderful heritage has been passed down to the present day, embracing Korea's unique sentiments, and stimulating nostalgia for home.