Mystery burger is sole menu item on North Korean airline
O n A i r Ko r y o , N o r t h Korea’s state airline, flflight attendants are known to serve one thing, and one t h i n g o n l y: a b u r g e r a s mysterious as the sec re - tive country itself.
T h e b u r g e r i s a l w a y s served cold, and always on a paper doily. Inside the bun is a piece of unidentifified meat, a slice of processed cheese, a dash of shredded cabbage or a lonely lettuce leaf, and a dollop of sweet, brown sauce.
The “Koryo Burger ” i s featured in countless Inst agram feeds and online reviews, not many of them c o m p l i m e n t a r y. I t h a s “gained cult status among passengers,” the British tabloid Daily Mail reported in 2015. Many wonder: Why a burger? What’s with the doily? What exactly is that meat?
But what i f t h e West ’s fascination with the Koryo Burger says less about the Koryo Burger than it does about the West?
The burger is “huge” in terms of public fascination, said Simon Cockerell, gene ra l manager of t he B e i - jing-based travel company Koryo Tours. It’s something that people are absolutely blown away by. And it’s a piece of meat between two buns.” (Koryo refers to an old Korean dynasty; the two companies are unrelated.)
“I think it’s just the incongruity of having a burger on a quote-unquote ‘Communist’ plane,” said Cockerell, who has visited North Korea 161 times in the last 15 years. But what else would they serve? You can’t give everyone a bibimbap (a Korean mixed rice dish), and serving kimchi on a plane would be horrifying.
“I t h i n k i t ’ s j u s t t h a t North Korea, to touri sts, is so inherently sinister and funny at the same time,” Cockerell said. “That ‘oh, my God, it’s a burger!’ — that’d be an absurd reaction on any other airline. But on Air Koryo, it’s a normal thing to do.”
The meat is chicken, he said. A man who picked up the phone at Air Koryo’s Beijing offiffice confifirmed that the airline normally” serves burgers. He could not confifirm the type of meat.
From 1994 to 1998, North Korea was ravaged by famine. Hundreds of thousands of people starved to death, according to best estimates. People ate bark and leaves to survive.
Although malnutrition remains common in North Korea, st ar vation i s now rare. Since the Communist country’s public food distribution system collapsed in the mid-1990s, its citizens — with the state’s tacit approval — have turned to the gray market to survive. Supermarkets have proliferated, as have restaurants. Some sell Western meals.
“I f y o u h a v e a g r o w - i n g c a p i t a l i s t e c o n o my, s omebody i s buyi ng j e t s and diamonds, and somebody is eating a nice protein-rich meal every day,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin Unive r s i t y i n S e ou l . “Of course they are not buying diamonds constantly, and a protein-rich meal is still beyond the means of most people — even if the diet of the masses is improving fast.”
Z h a o B i n , a b u s i n e s s - man from the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, said that on hi s first vi sit to Pyongyang, in 2003, the e l e c t r i c i t y c ut out ever y night. “The second time I went was almost 12 years l a t e r, a n d I t h i n k No r t h Ko r e a h a s d e v e l o p e d a lot, and people’s lives have improved dramatically.”
Pyongyang’s restaurant offfffffffffferings now include fried chicken, pizza, sushi — and — burgers. A burger, he said, c os t s a bout $ 1 . 5 0, a nd a 9-inch pizza costs less than $15. “My impression of hav- ing foreign food is that the service is exceptional, and the ingredients are all very fresh — unlike China, where there’s so much low-quality meat and vegetables.”
He gave the Koryo Burger hi g h marks. “I t hi nk t he meat t hey us e i s t hi c ke r and better than the stuff you get at KFC or McDonald’s,” he said.
Air Koryo is known for its aging Russian- made planes, its drab interiors, and its propensity for blaring militaristic propaganda during flflights.
But like North Korea itself, its culinary offfferings have c h a n ge d ove r t i me. Fo r years, t he ai rl i ne s er ved the burgers only on outbound flflights from Pyongyang, Cockerell said. On inbound flflights, it offffffffffffered full meals, including curry rice and side dishes.
“Then, for some reason, presumably budget, they switched to burger in both directions,” he said. At one time, Air Koryo also served “a sort of sandwich wrapped in a Danish pastry.” That lasted a few months; then it was back to the burger.
The burger has improved in recent years, he said. Air Koryo also offers a ve getarian option — the same burger, but with a tomato slice instead of meat. “The only vegetarian option used to be to not eat it, or to take the meat substance out,” he said.