Birthday Soup

It is Maia’s birthday today! Her family is making Miyeok Guk, a seaweed soup typically consumed by new mothers after giving birth and also on birthdays in honour of their mothers. “𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐩” is a story of making miyeok guk, honoring Korean tradition and a reminder that birthday cakes are not the only way of celebrating birthdays.

Coming from a Bengali family, this reminds me of our birthday tradition of having ‘𝘗𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘴𝘩 𝘢𝘳 𝘬𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘢’ (a milk sweet dish with banana fritters; different from the payasam though), ‘𝘱𝘢𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩-𝘣𝘩𝘢𝘫𝘢’ (5 kinds of fritters), and taking a bath in water infused with as many types of flowers as your age!

What birthday traditions do you have in your culture?