Korea's temple food

copyedited by Korea Time staff

 

 

Recently, I dropped into the Korean Temple Food Center in north Seoul. This was in order to interview its vice director and take part in a cooking class on making tofu-curry rice in the Korean temple food style.

Korean temple food is very diverse, but regarding spices, well that's another matter. It bans the use of five spices, some of which are critical in forming traditional Korean dishes and instead uses an array of original vegetables and other highlighted spices to create various specialties. These "ohsinchae," or five hot vegetable spices, are hot and when you consume them; the heat inside one's body rises.

What else is there about Korean temple food that makes it a staple of Northeast Asian temple food?

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

First let us introduce "ohgwange," which is the pre-meal chant. It signifies that food itself is part of asceticism, and that there are many people who toiled to grow the ingredients. That fact leads me to my more valuable behaviors, not to gluttony. Achieving energy for asceticism is like medicine, it supports the body and leads us to more study and practice for the universal truth. A healthy body, a healthy heart and overall health can set up the conditions for a better society.

The ohgwange means to eat in the Buddhist way and is known by heart, recited before having a meal. It says you need to live by good words and good behaviors, that absence leads to pain if these good words and behaviors are missing, and that a thankful heart is always necessary.

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

Temple food is itself not recipe-based. This means taste is second in priority. Temple food is chosen and structured in such a way that the energy necessary for asceticism is the chief objective. The temple food traditions are vast and document the food's presence in Korea for the past 1,700 years.

An ancient monk community was created about 1,700 years ago in Korea when its Buddhism started to blossom, influenced by 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, which substituted the traditions. But even now, Korean temple food tradition continue from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation. For instance, a Buddhist monk is taught by his/her teacher 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 are retained heretofore.

There is neither a chef nor training in the temple culinary sector. Just by becoming a Buddhist monk and living with other monks, preparing meals becomes the daily norm for all the monks.

With polite eating manners and what has become their true joy in preparing temple food meals for more people, the need for sensual desire when eating temple food is 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 proven method. With regards to plant-based-drinks, they developed over time, such as "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 is made from barley grain and the process creates barley starch, then mung bean starch is sprinkled all over, which completes the texture just like tapioca pearls.