Be more Korean Monk

Simpler food, served with love, harmony and gratitude...

The Venerable Beop Song, above

This week’s newsletter is inspired by a talk at the Cordon Bleu Institute in London, where Korean Monk, the Venerable Beop Song, took us through the basics of Korean Temple food.

Her vibrant energy and lively presentation speak volumes about her diet and lifestyle. But there was more than that - she’s 53, but looks about 30, and seemed to be the sort of person who can make everything more fun.

We were interested to go after seeing that edition of Chef’s Table on Netflix which featured another renowned temple food monk/chef, Jeong Kwang.

A few key things I took away from the talk at the CBI include that Buddhist monks eat food in season, and spend a lot of time preserving veg in different ways for the long hard winter.

The food they eat is very simple, doesn’t have a lot of seasoning, and they’re not allowed to eat anything in the onion family because not only do they say such things heighten your virility and desire, causing you to get distracted (ahem) and want to eat more, but there’s a far more practical reason too - in the close living quarters of a monastery, no one likes onion breath or farts, nor the strong smell of them cooking.

Very wise indeed.

The Buddha said something like ‘everything is about eating, but if we only eat food because it tastes good, we will get greedy and that food will become like a poison to us.’

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They also recommend only eating what you can. I’m still trying to work out what my limit is. An ‘All-You-Can-Eat’ buffet for me isn’t a description, it’s a challenge.

My partner has long practiced what the Japanese call ‘Hari Hacha Bu’, or stopping eating when you’re 80% full. My question to them has always been, ‘How the hell do you know that?”, often asked with a stuffed mouth.

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The first jobs assigned to novice monks are all about food - starting with washing the dishes - but it’s all tied up with service, gratitude and humility. Every monk knows the ins and outs of temple food cooking, and I love that. They say it takes six or seven years to arm yourself with all the knowledge - not only of the seasonality of edible plants, but also the knowledge of cooking, pickling, brining and preserving, and, of course, all the Buddhist rituals that surround food.

Ven. Beop Song - who has written a recipe book on temple food, and searched for the true meaning of temple food through studying the “View of Buddhist Food in the Agama” at the graduate school of Dongguk University in Seoul - told us how the food changes with the seasons, so the dishes represent not only the difference in what’s available, but also the health needs of the monks; cooling foods in summer, warming ones in winter.

It’s also tied up with offering maxium nutrition, gratitude for the food and those that cooked it, and making maximum use of every ingredient.

I was interested to know the water used to cook things like rice or mushrooms is used in other dishes. Offcuts of veg are often mashed, blended and added to pickles and preserves.

Honestly, this way of life - and eating - has been practiced for around 1700 years, and it warms my heart to know more about such a pure, sustainable way of eating that’s not complex, difficult or hard to achieve in any way.

Having said that, when you consider the food Ven. Beop Song cooks, it would be difficult to emulate exactly what they eat in Korea. But that’s not the point. It’s not about finding a specialist online store and getting some spices and frozen burdock or bonnet bellflower root (don’t ask me) flown in from Korea. That defeats the point. What I like is this natural affinity with the seasons, with what the body needs, and making wonderful dishes from limited ingredients.

So if we fancy living a life more aligned with this way of eating, I think all we really need to do is understand what’s in season, and how to cook it healthily. Head to the farmer’s market, not the online store!

The Six Flavours

Apparently, temple food dishes contain the six flavours - bitter, sour, sweet, spicy, salty and bland. Yes, bland. It’s literally a considered element of a dish. And while bland food makes me think of illness and old people, there’s room for bland food in all our lives - who doesn’t love a bowl of porridge or a cucumber sandwich?

This food is designed to nourish, and to leave you feeling almost sated - the idea being you operate at maximum mental and physical health, to allow room for the Buddha.

There are cleanliness rituals too, with every meal being considered an offering to Buddha. I also love that they take a tiny portion of the food and put it to one side, outside the dish, as an offering to other beings.

My infinitely more enlightened partner put it well, saying it’s all about harmony - with nature, with the seasons, with the environment and with your mind and soul.

To me, this cuisine seems like a perfect example of veganism helping you achieve the best possible version of yourself. Having said that, some of the dishes the Venerable monk prepared for us to try were a bit like baby food.

Cold noodles, cucumber and lettuce was surprisingly tasty, albeit slathered in a gochujang sauce, and tiny pieces of ginseng in a soy bean powder were a treat. But the soy bean pancakes were pretty tasteless, (decide for yourself, recipe below) and chewing on a bit of spicy mahogany root wasn’t really my thing.

A lesson I took from the class is to try and calm down the part of me that always wants everything to hold maximum flavour and delight. I get so much dopamine from food.

And to not forget the special ingredient in temple food: gratitude. The pre-meal chant says it all, really:

“Where has this food come from? My virtues are so few that I am hardly worthy to receive it. I will take it as medicine to get rid of greed in my mind and to maintain my physical being in order to acheive enlightenment.”

Pre-meal chant

The Venerable Beop Song reminded me that enjoying simple veg for what it is, is a beautiful thing. Be more monk.

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We received free recipe cards - loving re-worked and typed below, for your delectation. They have a wonderful 1970s cookbook vibe..

Recipes

To share the simplicity and ease of Korean temple food, I’m delighted to share a few of the Venerable Beop Song’s recipes.

Soy Pancakes

These are quick, easy and simple. I’d say perfect, but you might want to add some additional flavours, moving it away from the temple food philosophies, though…

Red Alert: The soybeans need soaking overnight and then cooking for hours - this might be best made when you find yourself with some random leftover cooked soybeans…or, go wild and use another kind of bean - maybe black eyed beans, cannelini beans or butter beans from a tin?

Ingredients

• 2 cups of soybeans, cooked (see below)

• 2 medium potatoes (russets are recommended, but that goes against the doctrine of seasonal eating, I suppose. Post-publication, one reader asked if they should be cooked. I’m really not sure, but when I make them, I’ll try using par-boiled potatoes, and then raw grated potatoes (think rosti) and see if it makes a difference

• 2 bell peppers (red looks good in this)

• 3 Tbsps of flour (sieve it to avoid claggy lumps)

• A generous pinch of salt

• Oil or spray for frying

Preparation

This recipe simply says ‘cook the soybeans’ - clearly written by someone who spends all day every day cooking for people. It takes ages - and here’s how:

Cooking soybeans from scratch is a straightforward process, but it requires some time for soaking and simmering to ensure the beans become tender. Here’s how you can cook two cups of soybeans:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of dried soybeans

• 6-8 cups of water (for soaking)

• 6-8 cups of water (for cooking)

Preparation

• Sort through the dried soybeans to remove any debris or damaged beans. I like to imagine I’m a squirrel at this point.

• Rinse the soybeans thoroughly under cold running water.

• Place the rinsed soybeans in a large bowl.

• Add 6-8 cups of water to the bowl, making sure the beans are fully submerged. The beans will expand as they soak, so use plenty of water.

• Allow the soybeans to soak for 8 to 12 hours or overnight at room temperature. Soaking helps soften the beans and reduces cooking time.

• Morning! After soaking, drain the water from the soybeans using a strainer.

• Rinse the beans under cold water again to remove any remaining impurities.

• Transfer the soaked soybeans to a large pot.

• Add 6-8 cups of fresh water to the pot. The water should cover the beans by at least an inch or two.

• Bring the water to a boil over high heat.

• Once the water reaches a boil, reduce the heat to low and cover the pot with a lid, allowing the beans to simmer.

• Simmer the soybeans for about 1.5 to 2.5 hours, or until the beans are tender. The cooking time can vary depending on the age and size of the beans.

• Check the beans occasionally, and if necessary, add more water to keep them submerged.

• Once the soybeans are fully cooked and tender, keep the remaining water for this recipe.

[Now back to the soy pancakes recipe]

• Blend your soybeans with the water they were cooked in

• Peel then grate the potatoes and chop the bell peppers into small cubes. (Beop Song recommends peeling the peppers, suggesting the skins are not good for digestion, but I don’t want to launch into another segue about that)

• Mix the blended soybeans with the grated potato, chopped peppers, salt and flour to make a batter

• Heat a frying pan or skillet over medium heat

• Take a large spoonful of the batter and gently place it in the pan, making it into a circular pancake by pressing down on the batter. Do this until your pan is full.

• Gently cook until they firm up and go a little brown. Don’t move them much, as they’ll break.

Bibim Guksu

A bowl of cold noodles. Fresh and filling, this is a great dish, and works as a summer meal anywhere. I could happily serve it with some air-fried tofu on top.

Ingredients

• 300g of good noodles

• 1 medium cucumber

• 10 lettuce leaves

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 2 Tbsp of gochujang (I’d happily go for one tablespoon, but you might like it hotter!)

• 3 Tbsp vinegar (I’d use rice wine vinegar)

• 2 Tbsp rice syrup/ brown rice syrup (honestly, get some if you don’t have it, other sweeteners change this dish)

• 2 Tbsps plum extract (you could use a small amount of tamarind paste, or the same amount of cranberry sauce, 1 Tbsp plum jam or Balsamic vinegar reduction, pomegranate molasses, the idea is to add a tart tang)

• 2 Tbsps of ground sesame seeds

Preparation

• Cook the noodles as per the packet instructions, or to your liking. I like mine a bit chewy…

• Plunge them into a big bowl of ice water, to stop them overcooking, to firm them up, and to stop them from being sticky. Leave them in the water.

• Cut the lettuce and cucumber into thin strips

• Make the seasoning sauce by combining all the ingredients that aren’t the lettuce or cucumber. Tweak it to your liking - less sweet, more spicy, less tart, etc…

• Drain the water from your bowl of noodles, then add the chopped lettuce, cucumber and sauce - and serve.

Mini Cabbage Summer Kimchi

I can’t believe I’ve got this far in the newsletter without mentioning kimchi! Food of the gods, and a mainstay of temple food. It was created as a way to make use of the often discarded outer cabbage leaves, and in typical temple food magic style, turned into something so much bigger than its parts. It’s basically cabbage rubbed with chilli paste or other pastes, and left to ferment. So popular is it that Ven. Beop Song admits her temple has a dedicated kimchi fridge, with built-in fermenting buckets. (Google tells me: “a kimchi refrigerator aims to be colder, with more consistent temperature, more humidity, and less moving air than a conventional refrigerator.”) So now you know.

Ingredients

• 3 mini cabbages

• 1 cup of salt

• 3 bell peppers (Our monk said she’d never seen a green pepper before)

• 1 cucumber

• 2 Tbsps flour

• 3 cups of warm water

• 1 Tbsp salt

• 2 Tbsp Korean red pepper powder (Gochugaru - ground chili powder, basically, but this is a very particular flavour. It’s essential, really, to create something akin to real kimchi, but you could get away with red pepper flakes or smoked paprika)

• 2 Tbsp rice syrup (See, I told you to get some)

• 1 Tbsp ginger juice (I’d probably make this in the blender, or using my special poundshop mini mincer/ mandolin, which I’m very proud of)

Preparation

• Salt the mini cabbages (What now? I hear you cry. Well, this just means cutting out the bottom of the cabbage, separating the leaves and rubbing salt into each and every leaf)

• Leave them to one side.

• Thinly slice the bell peppers and cucumber into strips

• Make a flour paste by combining the water and flour, then adding the salt

• When it cools, add the seasoning - the red pepper powder, the rice syrup and the ginger juice

• Take a cabbage leaf, and lay the strips of pepper and cucumber on each leaf, then roll them up and put them in a large container - the monk used a big Tupperware pot

• Pour over the sauce, and leave them for a day or two to ferment in the sauce

It was unclear to me how long these might last in the fridge, or when you should eat them, but that’s the fun of testing stuff in the kitchen right?

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Gamja Bokkeum - Korean-style Sweet Soy-Glazed Potatoes

Ok, so this isn’t temple food, but it’s one of my favourite Korean dishes, a variation of which was first served to me by the amazing Rishim at Tendril, and I still can’t mimic his ‘Chinatown purple potatoes’ recipe to my satisfaction. This version - discovered in my hunt to mimic the Tendril classic - is basically potatoes in an umami-rich sauce, and I’m sure the Ven. Beop Song would enjoy it too.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons (30ml) soy sauce (see note)

• 3 tablespoons (45ml) water

• 2 tablespoons (30g) sugar

• 1 teaspoon (5ml) (vegan) fish sauce

• 1 medium clove garlic (5g), finely grated

• 2 tablespoons (30ml) vegetable oil

• 285g small Charlotte/ Desiree/Yukon Gold potatoes, rinsed and halved

• 1 tablespoon (15ml) toasted sesame oil

• 1 tablespoon (6g) toasted sesame seeds

Preparation

In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, water, sugar, fish sauce and garlic until sugar is dissolved, about 30 seconds. Set aside. I have been known to add a bit of gojujang for heat.

Pour the vegetable oil into a saucepan, over medium heat. Let it heat. Then add the potatoes, arranging them cut-side down in a single layer. Cook, uncovered, until potatoes are light golden-brown on the cut-side, 5 to 6 minutes.

Lower heat to medium-low, add the soy sauce mixture and stir to combine with potatoes. Cover your pan with a lid, and cook until the potatoes are completely tender and offer no resistance when pierced with a knife - about 10 minutes.

Remove the lid and increase heat to high. Cook, uncovered, stirring constantly with a heat-resistant rubber spatula, until liquid has reduced and thickened to a sticky caramel consistency that fully glazes the potatoes, 1 to 2 minutes.

Remove from heat, and transfer potatoes to serving bowl. Drizzle with sesame oil, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and serve.

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Stuff You Should Know - and Care About

merlinthepig

A post shared by @merlinthepig

Above - in case you doubted that the average pig has the intelligence of a three-year old human.

Give tortured mother pigs a break

Compassion in World Farming shared a harrowing email with me this week. Did you know, in the UK alone, around 200,000 mother pigs are confined in cramped metal crates for almost a quarter of their adult lives? These farrowing crates are so restrictive that they lead to severe physical and mental suffering.

Before giving birth, a mother pig is placed in a "farrowing crate", a narrow metal cage with space for the piglets on the side and bars separating her from them. This crate severely restricts her movement, preventing her from turning around or acting on her natural instincts to build a nest and interact properly with her piglets. The sheer frustration and stress this causes is a major welfare issue. To make matters worse, modern-day sows have been genetically bred so they are now over 50% heavier than they were 30 years ago, some mothers are now the same size, or larger than the crates.

Just a week or so after she’s removed from her piglets, a mother pig is artificially inseminated again, starting another pregnancy with a new prison sentence soon in sight. This continues until, at three years old and considered past her prime, she is sent for slaughter. To those who always mutter ‘but bacon…’ when considering going vegan, think about the above. If you feel like I do, then you know you should help CIWF and sign the petition, calling on the relevant Ministers for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to end the use of farrowing crates for sows in the UK.

Melting ice is causing more climate change issues than we thought

Researchers have discovered that when glaciers calve in Antarctica, they can generate massive underwater tsunamis, which cause significant ocean mixing. This process, previously overlooked, involves large waves moving through underwater layers, creating intense churn when they break. This new understanding reveals that such events are more frequent than assumed, potentially increasing as climate change accelerates glacier melting. These findings suggest that current climate models may be incomplete, as they don't account for the effects of this mixing on global ocean dynamics.

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Baby beavers born in London for first time in 400 years

Amongst all the doom and gloom and global crisis-level shit, I take time to seek positive news - and my favourite this week was this piece about beavers. The headline says it all, but basically in what is being called “a huge advancement in urban rewilding”, the successful reintroduction of beavers to London – and now the birth of the kits – is the fruit of a collaboration between multiple organisations and bodies.

The babies have been spotted venturing outside of their lodge in recent weeks at what is a publicly accessible site in Paradise Fields, a wetland in Greenford, west London. Beavers used to be permanent residents in the capital, before hunting, habitat destruction and persecution led to the loss of the species throughout the UK.

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Cause of the Week

Those poor pigs, above - that has to be the cause of the week, right?

What hurts even more is that we’ve been here before, when nearly 11,000 people signed a petition to ban farrowing crates. That’s a shockingly low number - so PLEASE share the petition far and wide. The UK is supposed to be a nation of animal lovers! Pah! The bid failed. We must keep trying. They’re banned in many countries already. And we have to fight back against people like the chair of the UK’s National Pig Association saying it’s impossible to meet an EU-proposed deadline to ban the crates by 2027. And of course, post-Brexit, the UK doesn’t even need to adhere to that any more!

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And finally…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s waffle, rants and recipes. Please let me know if you cook anything above - and pass this newsletter on far and wide to anyone you think might like it.

Love and kimchi,

Will

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PS. I have to say, when we talk about Korea, we mean South Korea. And then I just got to thinking that I’m a bit uncomfortable writing about the deep joy and beauty of (south) Korean food, when the people in the north are suffering.

Rising food prices and persistent economic challenges are exacerbating the issue. Although reports of widespread famine have decreased, the country continues to struggle with high inflation on essential food items like grains, making it difficult for many households to afford basic necessities. The situation is compounded by natural disasters and a fragile economy, leading to ongoing food insecurity.

If you want to help, read about the insanity of North Korea, and help spread awareness. I’ll leave you with a line from a campaigner who bravely spoke to the UN: “If they developed the economy instead of missiles, there would be no need for any North Koreans to starve to death…”