April’s Moon-Kim summit brought public attention to a dish routinely consumed in both Koreas in the summer, a meal of Northern origin: buckwheat noodles in cold broth, or Pyongyang naengmyeon. Many Southerners believe that their Northern brethren hold this dish in high esteem as an authentic local specialty.

However, few things could be further from the truth.

Until the 2000s, the idea that cold noodles were a national culinary symbol would raise eyebrows in the North, and the social status of this dish was quite low. For decades, propaganda of socialist abundance had been rice-centered, driven by a popular slogan