Among them are Chogyethang and red-bean gruel.

Chogyethang is a cold soup cooked with chicken, beef, trepang, mung-bean paste, cucumber, vinegar and mustard. It is good for stimulating appetite and healing the symptoms of sultriness.

Red-bean gruel, too, is good for health in midsummer. An old book says that red-bean is helpful to eliminating waste matter and abscess in human body, stopping diarrhea, promoting urination and treating ascites.

In the DPRK, the hottest period of summer this year is from July 12 to August 11.