The dish now known as tteokgalbi is believed to have originated as a royal court dish. One interpretation of how it traveled to the provinces holds that scholars sent into exile carried royal court recipes with them, adapting them to suit local circumstances in each region. Because Damyang had long been widely known as a place of exile, many believe tteokgalbi established itself here earlier than in other regions through exactly this kind of transmission.
The name "tteokgalbi" itself arose from the cooking process. The process of pounding short-rib meat with a knife, mincing it finely, and then re-forming it resembled the process of making tteok (rice cake) by steaming rice and pounding it in a mortar — hence the name. This term only came into widespread use around the late 1960s to early 1970s. Today's Guksu-geori, or Noodle Street, one of Damyang's beloved food destinations, carries an interesting history of its own: this street stands on the very site where Damyang's old bamboo-goods market once operated. In this single narrow street, one can trace, in compressed form, the whole arc of a royal recipe traveling south with an exile, receiving a new name, and, once a market disappeared from its site, giving rise to a different kind of food alley in its place.