Korea's temple food now

One sunday this spring, I dropped into Korean Temple Food Center in north of Seoul, South Korea. This was in order to interview its vice Director and go on to cooking class with the class tutor of tofu-curry rice in Korean temple food style.

 

Korean temple food is very diverse, but spice-wise unprecedented in the culinary department. It cuts out five spices, some of which are critical in forming traditional Korean dishes and instead uses an array of original veggies and other highlighted spices to create specialty. (These oh-sin-chae - meaning five hot vegetable spices - are hot and when you take them, the heat inside the body rises.)

 

Then, what else is there about Korean temple food that makes it staple of Northeast Asian temple food?

 

Here is a summary of what those two vivacious teaching Korean monks said:

 

First let us introduce oh-gwan-ge, which is the pre-meal chant. It signifies that food is part of asceticism, and that there are many people who toiled for the ingredients, and that fact leads to my more valuable behaviours, not to gluttony. Achieving energy for asceticism is like medicine, it supports the body and leads us to furthermore study and practise for the universal truth. The healthy body, the healthy heart and overall health can set up a better society.

The ohgwan-ge means “eating in buddhist way” for “gong-yang-hada” and is known by heart, recited before having your meal. It says you need to live by good words and good behaviours, that the absence leads to pain if these good words and behaviours are missing, and that a thankful heart is always necessary.

 

For the two monks, the process of meeting up people and letting them know all about wholesome, healthy food was memorable in itself. For Korean Temple Food Center, this involves everyone who visit, (and they have been a lot) foreigners too.

 

Temple food is itself not recipe-based. This means taste is in the second place. The temple food is chosen and structured in such a way that energy necessary for asceticism is the chief thing. Also vast are the temple food traditions and documents that have in Korea lasted for 1700 years.

 

An ancient monk community was created about the said 1700 years ago in Korea when its buddhism started to blossom, influenced from more western Asian regions. The community lived together, foraged and cooked for themselves. With other traditional Korean food, the history is different - the tradition of royal palatial food culture was dropped, and many alternatives to private culinary traditions, including food delivery, substitute the traditions. But even now, Korean temple food tradition continues from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation. For instance, a buddhist monk is taught by his/her eunsa seunim (tutor)　how to make and share temple food when he/she goes to buddhist university. Fermented condiments including doenjang and soy sauce are readily made in temples. No artificial spice is used and much of the original types of Korean food is retained heretofore.

 

The so-im-ja in temples take turns to cook for everyone. There is neither chef nor training in the temple culinary sector. Just by becoming a Buddhist monk and living with other monks, preparing meals becomes daily life for all the monks among us.

 

(One monk described her favourite seasonal recipe: the muwakjeoji. When harvest season arrives, the white radish, which is mu meaning a root vegetable, is cut and chopped and fried to create this nutritious boiled-down dish.

 

She also recommended a gorgeous temple food fine-dining restaurant named Balwoo Gongyang at Insadong in Seoul. Course meal comprising the hors d’oeuvre, the main dish and the dessert is served in private rooms.)

 

With polite eating manners and what has become their true joy in preparing temple food meals for more people, the ever-dragging traps of lack of sensual desire in eating temple food are skipped. Eating is asceticism for you and me and no left-overs!

 

The buddhists, same as others, are creating endless healthy recipes and although some fail, they ultimately find out the cause of the problem, ending up using the proved method. Plant-based-drink-wise, they developed in time cheong (crystallized fruit) from seasonal fruits, using water instead of sugar, and the quintessential sikhye, a rice-based drink using fermented rice, some of which can go on to become grain syrup. But the hidden card is Borisudan! It takes up barley grain to create barley starch, sprinkles mung bean starch all over, finally completing texture just like tapioca pearl.