Gwamegi (과메기, half-dried saury or herring) is fish dried by repeated overnight freezing and daytime thawing, then eaten as-is, wrapped in seaweed. New-season fish was already shipping from Guryongpo in late October last year, and a first-timer should start with baejigi (배지기, cleaned and filleted), not tongmari (통마리, whole fish with head and innards).
In our apartment, a box of half-dried fish has to win a household vote, and I can guess the count. My wife and our 7-year-old are cold-food people (naengmyeon, 냉면, cold noodles, and kongguksu, 콩국수, cold soy-milk noodles), and neither wants a fishy smell near the fridge. I am the hot-and-strong one, the person who would carry the box up in the elevator. So with the first local report I found, on Oct 16, I read it like a lobbyist reading a bill.
Today is Oct 31, 2026, and some things are still unknown. I found no published 2026 dureum price, and the English guides I found disagree with Korean reports on when the season starts.
Is gwamegi raw, cooked, or fermented?
Uncooked, and not fermented in any source I read: it is dried. Fish are frozen overnight, thawed in the daytime, and the cycle repeats until water content falls to about 40%, according to Michelin Guide Korea and Wikipedia. Michelin gives daytime temperatures of 4-5 C. Neither description involves cooking with heat or a fermentation step, and you eat it without further cooking. Michelin attributes its savory depth to glutamate.
I found no source on raw-food safety for individual eaters, so I leave that out.
How long does the drying take? That depends on whom you ask:
| Source | Drying or maturing time |
|---|---|
| Michelin Guide Korea (2019) | Saury 3-4 days; herring about 10 days |
| Hansik Foundation | Several days of freeze-thaw cycles; in poor weather a freezer room below -10 C, warmed to about 10 C |
| Kyunghyang Shinmun (Jan 2001) | Matures over about two weeks |
| Wikipedia | Frozen at about -10 C, then dried outdoors to about 40% water (no day count) |
The spread runs from 3 days to about 14, nearly fivefold. I can’t tell from these sources whether that is a difference in fish, method or era, and I would not trust any single number you read elsewhere. Michelin and Wikipedia, the two sources here that give a moisture figure, both say roughly 40% water.
Where does gwamegi come from, and why did herring become saury?
Gwamegi began as a herring (청어, cheongeo) food. Herring around Yeongil Bay dropped sharply after the 1960s, and herring production ended around the late 1960s, so saury (꽁치, kkongchi) took over. A Pohang cooperative director said saury gwamegi went nationwide around the late 1980s, per Korean coverage. Pohang’s Guryongpo (구룡포, a fishing port district) is the center: Michelin Guide put it at about 80% of Korea’s gwamegi in 2019. I could not verify that against current data, so treat it as a dated estimate.
The name is just as unsettled. One account traces it to gwanmok (貫目, “eye-threaded”), but sources differ on whether that was herring or saury. A 1918 story about an exam candidate (the Socheonsoji) is also repeated, and one source flags it as low in historical value. So I would not put an etymology on a menu card.
The industry itself is not small. Korean reports on Oct 16-19, 2026 say Pohang’s 2025-26 season produced 3,206 tons with sales of 91.5 billion won, up 50.7% and 19.1% on the year before, and 156 producers are registered with the Guryongpo Gwamegi Cooperative.
When does gwamegi season actually start?
Earlier than the English guides say. I assumed the mid-November line was right until I saw that the 2025 new-season fish shipped on Oct 20.
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Michelin Guide Korea (2019) | Mid-November to February |
| The Soul of Seoul (food blog) | Mid-November to February |
| Wikipedia | Drying starts in December |
| Hansik Foundation | Production usually starts mid-October; eating in November |
| Kyeongbuk Maeil (Oct 27, 2025) | New-season Guryongpo fish first shipped Oct 20, 2025 |
| Online seller listing (Oct 20, 2026) | “2026 new-season” gwamegi set already advertised |
Here is how I reconcile them. The guides seem to describe when people eat gwamegi, while the news and the seller describe when fish is shipped. That is my reading, not something any source states. In practice, new-season fish is on sale from late October, and the weekend tastings run November into December. Hansik’s mid-October production start fits the October shipments, while Wikipedia’s December drying start is the outlier, because dated shipping news from 2025 contradicts it. Between Oct 20 and a mid-November start is about 26 days of fish that the English guides I read do not mention. I did not find the exact first-shipment date for 2026, so the Oct 20, 2026 listing is a sign that fish is moving, not a launch date. If you shop in the second half of November, you will not be late, but you will miss the first few weeks of new-season fish.
What does a box cost in 2026, and what is the saury shortage?
I found no published 2026 price per dureum (두름, a bundle of 20 fish) as of Oct 31, so I won’t guess one. A News1 report dated Oct 28 (as carried by Sportal Korea) says Pohang city expects this year’s gwamegi price to rise slightly from last year because of the poor saury catch, with no figure, so treat it as direction, not a number.
The only hard benchmark is last season’s, and the sources disagree on it. Kyeongbuk Maeil (Oct 27, 2025) reported the Oct 20, 2025 first shipment of new-season Guryongpo fish at 23,000 won per dureum, 2,000 won below the year before. News1 and Wikitree (both Nov 2, 2025) put the price at about 25,000 won per 20 fish, and Wikitree called it similar to the year before. I can’t tell whether the 2,000 won gap is shipment-day versus early-November pricing or a difference in reporting.
| Point in time | Price | Per fish |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 20, 2025, first shipment (Kyeongbuk Maeil) | 23,000 won per dureum | about 1,150 won |
| Nov 2, 2025 (News1, Wikitree) | about 25,000 won per dureum | about 1,250 won |
| Oct 2026, official dureum price | not found | unknown |
| Oct 2026, one seller’s listing, after a coupon | about 17,900 won for 5 fish (10 pieces) plus vegetable set | about 3,580 won |
The jump from 1,150-1,250 to 3,580 won per fish is a factor of about 2.9 to 3.1 (3,580 divided by 1,250 and by 1,150), but the two numbers are not comparable. One is a source price for 20 fish; the other is a single seller’s coupon price for a small set that includes vegetables. One fish (미) is two pieces (쪽), so the retail set works out to about 1,790 won per piece.
Treat it as one data point, not a market price.
Kyeongbuk Maeil tied last year’s lower price to a distant-water saury catch that rose more than 40%. This year, reports on Pohang Mayor Park Yong-seon’s Oct 16 plant visit say that catch is poor, and the city plans to secure Taiwanese saury imports and tighten hygiene and quality control. No import volume or price was given. If the cause of last year’s lower price has reversed, I would not assume the 2025 price repeats, and the city’s forecast points up, but I have no figure to give you.
How should a first-timer eat gwamegi?
Start with baejigi, wrapped, not tongmari. Michelin says most gwamegi in restaurants and markets is baejigi. Tongmari is the whole fish dried with head and innards, a version Guryongpo locals eat, which Michelin calls more hardcore and less popular and says tastes even stronger. I would save it for round two, once you know whether you like the texture at all.
The Hansik Foundation’s beginner method is wraps. Dip bite-sized pieces in red-pepper vinegar sauce (초고추장, chogochujang), then wrap them in raw seaweed (미역, miyeok) or laver (김, gim) with ssam (쌈, wrap) vegetables such as cabbage, lettuce or perilla, plus scallion, garlic and chili. My guess is that the sauce, garlic and greens are there partly to take the edge off the fishy smell, which is exactly my wife’s objection.
When you buy, check four things:
- Firm flesh, not mushy
- Reddish color inside
- Little fishy smell
- A shiny silver belly
Store leftovers for no more than 1-2 days in the fridge, or freeze them and thaw slowly. That 1-2 day rule is why I would buy a small set, not a dureum, for a household where I am the only volunteer.
Where can I try it for free this winter?
The Pohang Guryongpo Gwamegi Culture Center runs a free tasting on its 3rd floor every Saturday and Sunday in November and December 2026, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., ending early if the day’s fish runs out (announced Oct 26). On my calendar that is 17 afternoons, 9 in November and 8 in December, and tomorrow, Sunday Nov 1, would be the first.
Wikipedia says a Pohang festival has run each November since 1997, but I could not find official 2026 dates, so I am not giving you any. Check the Pohang city site before you plan a trip around it.
My plan is boring. I’d go to a tasting before I buy anything. If I buy, it’s a 5-fish baejigi set, eaten in two days, and I would wait until a 2026 dureum price is published before deciding that 17,900 won is normal. The vote at home is probably still 1-2, but I can get one more person to the table with a laver wrap. I covered another November food-calendar cost earlier, in the kimjang cost post.