Buddhists and beef, kimchi and caviar: a culinary trip through South Korea
- Food editor Susan Jung travels through South Korea sampling some of the best the country has to offer
- She feasts on vegetarian food at a Buddhist temple, enjoys Korean beef and the best of Seoul food
Jeong Kwan, the Buddhist nun of Baekyangsa Temple in South Korea who became widely known after appearing in season three of Netflix Chef’s Table, slowly surveys the room. Swathed in pristine pale robes, she sits cross-legged, looking serene and comfortable, an English interpreter nearby, at one end of a room.
The 18 or so of us lining the other three walls of the room, and sitting the same way on thin cushions, seem far less comfortable, and many try to change position and stretch their legs discreetly.
“I’ve cooked for thousands of people,” she says in Korean, “but never have I been so nervous.” We are not her normal group of visitors there for a temple stay; in this group is a host of big name chefs – Richie Lin of Mume in Taipei, Kenichiro Yamauchi of Restau K Yamauchi in Nagoya, Japan, and the Korean contingent includes Kang Min-goo of the Michelin two-star Mingles, and Cho Hee-suk of Hansikgonggan, which received a star in the latest guide, after being open only a year.
Jeong Kwan demonstrates the correct way to unnest the four wooden bowls in front of us, and lays them out on a wooden board along with chopsticks and spoon, doing it gracefully and silently. We try to copy her movements, but are far noisier as the bowls bang against each other and on the board as we set them down. She mentions that if were trainee monks, we would have been sent out afterwards to do chores, as penalty for breaking the silence.
Following her example, we serve ourselves rice, clear soup and vegetables – the typical fare of the monks and nuns at the temple. As tempting as the food looks, we’ve been warned by Jeong Kwan that another larger meal is coming later, so we take just small amounts. And besides, greed, overeating and wasting food are against the tenets of Buddhist philosophy. We’re careful to finish every bite in our bowls.
In another part of the beautiful and extensive temple grounds, we have to fight our natural inclination towards greed and overeating, because we’re served a feast, prepared by Jeong Kwan and her team of civilian volunteers.