New age traditions
Asia’s Best Female Chef 2020 Cho Hee-sook of Hansikgonggan on preserving Korean cuisine
Cho Hee-sook began her career as a teacher and though she is Asia’s Best Female Chef 2020, she still embodies the principals of being a teacher.
Hee-sook has pushed forth the need to preserve traditional Korean cooking techniques and flavours.
“Every country has its own unique culture and colour, created by natural environments and people. In the modern days, as we exchange our culture a lot more than before, these cultures are fused and mixed to create new cultures. But, fundamentally, each culture needs to keep its own authenticity to make it different from others. So, its legacy needs to be kept and passed on to the next generation. Food culture is no exception and it is important to preserve and pass on this knowledge on Korean cuisine to the younger generation of chefs,” says Hee-sook.
At the Michelin-starred and No.34 on the Asia’s 50 Best list Hansikgonggan, she puts the spotlight on royal Korean cuisine. Traditional methods mixed with modern presentation and plating, Hee-sook preserves palace culinary techniques of years gone by.
“I try new ingredients and plating by combining palace cooking techniques with new cooking techniques. My interpretation of modernity is firmly rooted in traditional Korean cuisine,” she asserts. The tteokbokki (stir-fried spicy short rice noodle)-loving chef, maintains a balance between the true taste of traditional Korean and the sense of what people feel and want in food today.
“I preserve traditional Korean flavours through seasoning and cooking techniques, while also incorporating new ingredients. I also show Korean style and nuance through plating and presentation, converging all these details and coming up with new dishes. That’s how I built my own style. That’s why at Hansikgonggan, we serve traditional recipes in a modern setting using modern presentation and plating to evoke a modern-day feel to the food.”
Though at Hansikgonggan the focus is on royal Korean cuisine, Hee-sook has a “deep interest” in all categories of Korean cuisine, such as temple, novel, local and North Korean. Though she says, she will never use or eat dog meat as she is born in the year of the dog.
“I learned traditional Korean cuisine, spending almost my entire career researching traditional recipes that date back to the Joseon dynasty. Now I cook my own cuisine based on traditional Korean food. I enjoy creating new menus through my own reinterpretation and style. The reason why Hansikgonggan and I are known for royal cuisine is also because of the location. The restaurant is neighbours with the Korean royal palace, which it overlooks,” says the chef, who has yet to make jjapaguri, or ramdon, the noodle dish made famous in the movie Parasite, though it is on the staff meal calendar.
As a food culture researcher at the Arumjigi Foundation, Hee-sook has led the globalisation of Korean food to introduce “the taste of Korean food”.
“Their philosophy is, ‘The past and present come together to create a bright future.’ My job was to keep the philosophy by researching Korean food. I have learned to keep tradition alive by upholding the values and spirit of traditional Korean culture and have adapted it for modern society, while trying to pass it on to the next generation.”
Though the chef has been asked multiple times to publish a book on her research, finding time is problematic.
“Working as a full-time chef at Hansikgonggan, it is difficult to concentrate on writing a book. But I would like to put all my experiences and knowledge together one day soon. So, it will be helpful to someone who needs it,” she says.
Letting the world know that Korean cuisine is more than kimchi is definitely not a one-person job, she says.
“But it’s necessary. We have a foundation called the Korean Food Foundation, run by the government and many Korean chefs are helping them with it.”
In 1983, Hee-sook gave up her teaching job to begin her culinary career, starting in a hotel kitchen.
“Just like these days, being a schoolteacher was an admirable job, but I wanted to challenge myself. It was not easy for me to give up on all the benefits, as it affected my family, too. Back in those days, chefs were even more conservative towards women. To overcome the prejudice against female chefs, I had to give up being a housewife like others, prioritise my career and work two or three times harder than other chefs. This has made me who I am today,” she says, and that is “the godmother of Korean cuisine”.
MY INTERPRETATION OF MODERNITY IS FIRMLY ROOTED IN TRADITIONAL KOREAN CUISINE