안녕하세요, I’m Korean American (biracial & not a Korean speaker, so I apologize in advance if I’m romanizing anything strangely) and I’ve been cooking Korean food in the last couple years. It’s become pretty important to me and I’ve been eating healthy & delicious.
Long story short, I recently got diagnosed with a rare pain disorder called erythromelalgia. Basically every time I squeeze my knuckles or overuse my hands they turn bright red and I feel intense burning pain. It’s been too painful to do things like prepare blanched ingredients (not common in US American cuisine) where I have previously been squeezing the water out with my hands after blanching. actually I was making 시금치나물 the first time I had a flareup, at first I thought I hadn’t rinsed with enough cold water and was burning my hands 🥲
I asked my Halmoni but thankfully she doesn’t have any arthritis so she hasn’t needed to modify how she cooks. My imo suggested using a cheesecloth/gauze towel to twist the water out, but it was still too much pressure on my hands. I was thinking a tofu press might work but also that I’d need to make a very large quantity of spinach, for example, to have it filled enough for the press to be effective. I live & eat alone most of the time, so that’s less than ideal.
Does anybody with chronic hand pain or anybody with arthritis etc. know of some other tips and tricks for cooking common Korean food that puts less pressure on the hands and/or knuckles? I feel like half the stuff I like to make for banchan or to put in bibimbap, I squeeze water out of at some point, so any ideas to make it easier would be much appreciated.
감사합니다!!
submitted by /u/oldneckbones
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