This cake has bindae — Korean for "bedbug" — right in its name, yet it has nothing to do with the insect. Probably! The most widely known theory is the binja-tteok account. The dish was originally laid down on ritual tables as a base for stacking oil-fried meat high, then later became food for the poor, so binja-tteok ("poor person's cake") supposedly slid into bindae-tteok. To be honest, though, the theories are many. In his Joseon Sangsik, Choe Nam-seon proposed that it came from the Chinese sound bingja (餠飣), tracing byeongja-byeong (餠子餠) → binja-tteok → bindae-tteok. Others say it comes from bindae (賓對), "to receive guests," and there is even a place-name theory that Jeong-dong's "Bindae-gol" — a quarter once full of bedbugs — was crowded with binja-tteok vendors. None can be nailed down for certain. It is fairest to say the binja-tteok theory is the strongest, but not the settled answer.