Napa cabbage pancake sizzled on a well-heated frying pan. Foreigners who were watching the whole pancake-making process were eager to try a piece of the golden pancake.

- It’s not something I’ve had before. But it’s really easy to make. I think I will make it often from now on. It’s delicious. So good.
- I love Korean food. I love this experience and it’s delicious! Very good!

Jeonju, the city of taste and style, in North Jeolla Province hosted the Korea Food Festival 2012 from October 18 through 22. It was a celebration of Korean food, one of the best-kept secrets in the culinary world, and a chance to taste and make your own Korean dishes. Here’s Professor Moon Yun-geol of Yewon Arts University, steering committee director for the Korea Food Festival 2012.

It’s Visit Korea Year from 2010 to 2012, and the Korea Food Festival is a special part of that event. It’s a temporary festival held only during the three-year Visit Korea Year. We hoped the festival can help people around the world to appreciate the wonderful flavors of Korean food and help spur the development of the Korean food industry.

Held in the Jeonju World Cup Stadium, the festival featured, among others, the Korean cuisine exhibition where various Korean dishes and culinary culture were introduced, the hands-on program for making your own Korean seasonings like doenjang, fermented bean paste, and soy sauce, a chance to meet Korean culinary masters and learn their secrets, and a special exhibition titled “Home-cooked Meals of Korea,” following the changes in everyday meals. The festival also provided a chance for local food and beverage companies to display and sell their fermented food. Some three thousand different food items in ten categories, including fermented seasoning, alcoholic beverage, and yogurt, were on display to entice foreign buyers to understand and import Korean food. Here’s Professor Moon Yun-geol of Yewon Arts University, steering committee director for the Korea Food Festival 2012 once again.

In the Domestic Company Hall some 230 local makers of fermented food gathered to show and sell their food and beverage items to foreign buyers. Korea has seven fermented food categories, including salted food, fermented seasoning, food pickled in vinegar, kimchi, etc. These products are sold to foreign buyers or tourists.

Visitors could taste samples of Korean dishes wherever they went and realize how flavorful and healthy Korean food is. It truly was a celebration of Korean cuisine, the taste of Korea passed down one generation to another, through hundreds of years. Here’s Professor Moon Yun-geol again.

The festival informed people from all over the world that Korean food is healthy and uses natural ingredients. Many foreign buyers who came to the event ended up making deals to import Korean food. The festival was meaningful in that the event showed the world that Korean food can be enjoyed by everyone.

The host city of Jeonju is known as the culinary capital of Korea.

Jeonju is the city of food, renowned for many delectable dishes. “Jeonju” is the most often used city name in restaurant names. Also, Jeonju was designated an UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. It was only fitting that Jeonju was selected to host a food festival.

Lately people have been seeking healing and well-being as their life goals. It was, therefore, not surprising that Buddhist temple food was the most popular topic at the festival. Here’s the Venerable Woo-gwan of the Temple Cuisine Center explaining about the exceptional qualities of Buddhist temple cuisine.

Temple cuisine is all natural. Buddhist monks grow their own vegetables and use them to make their own soy sauce, chili paste, and bean paste. In ordinary households they use lots of garlic to make kongnamul, or cooked bean sprouts, but we only use a little bit of salt and home-made soy sauce to season the dish and finish up with a sprinkle of sesame seed oil. If you put too much green onion or garlic, that’s all you taste, not the real flavor of bean sprouts. We try to minimize the use of seasonings so that the natural flavor and texture of bean sprouts come through. In Buddhist temples we try to follow “balwoo gongyang,” a frugal way of eating that discourages people from taking too much food or leaving left-over food.

The key to temple cuisine is to minimize the use of palate-numbing seasonings and savor the natural flavors of ingredients. Tasting a Buddhist meal leaves your mind and body cleansed.

- It feels like I’m eating nature. Temple cuisine is all about eating naturally. The more I eat temple food, I miss it more. My body reacts badly to the additives used in other restaurants, but when I eat Buddhist food I feel as if I’m coexisting with nature.
- I’m going to try to cook like this. It’s clean, healthy, and I can cleanse my body and mind with food. I feel as if I can control my mind better with temple food.

Fresh ingredients with minimal seasonings and no leftovers – temple cuisine really is an environment-friendly way of eating. Professor Moon Yun-geol of Yewon Arts University says temple cuisine is the next-generation hallyu food.



Temple cuisine demonstrates through meals how man and nature can get along in harmony. Temple food doesn’t just satiate our hunger, but allows us to discover new values through the act of eating. This is why foreign visitors want to experience temple cuisine at least once. I believe temple cuisine and the act of eating in Buddhist temples can be shared with people around the world.

We can’t talk about iconic Korean food without taking fermented seasonings called “jang” in a blanket term, such as spicy chili paste or gochujang and fermented bean paste called doenjang. Long maturation and fermentation give these “jang” their unique, rich flavors and healthful qualities. At the Korea Food Festival visitors were able to learn the secrets of great jang-making.

The first step to making “jang” is forming “meju,” blocks of cooked beans. First, cooked beans are pounded in a large mortar. The nutty aroma of soybeans filled the festival venue. Right next to the stall demonstrating the traditional way of making jang, there are shops selling ready-made jang or jang made with meju powder instead of the traditional meju blocks.

Jjigeum-jang is a specialty of Gochang, North Jeolla province. It is a mixture of cooked sweet rice, meju powder, and barley malt, all mashed together.

- I came here to learn about Jeonju’s fermented food. I’m glad I came. My mother used to make jang for me, but now I think I can do it myself. Let’s taste the jjigeum-jang we just made. Hmm, this still smells of meju, but I think it will be good to eat in a couple of days. It looks delicious.

Each region in Korea unfailingly has its own specialty food. Jeonju is famous for its bibimbap and kongnamul gukbap, or bean sprout soup with rice. At the Korea Food Festival masters of Jeonju’s signature dishes who have run generations of specialty restaurants showed off their trade secrets.

A variety of cooked vegetables and rice are mixed with gochujang sauce. A big spoonful of Jeonju bibimbap brings a satisfying grin. Bibimbap master Won Geum-hye, whose family has run a bibimbap restaurant for three generation, over a span of 77 years, was serving her famous bibimbap to tourists. She shared her secret to great-tasting bibimbap.

I put in about seven or eight kinds of cooked vegetables, like spinach, bracken fern, zucchini, and dried mountain greens. Then I marinate Korean beef every day. I use all sorts of seasonings and ground pear to make the marinade. So much goes into this single dish. Not everybody can do it. It’s nutritionally perfect and made with lots of love and care. It’s the best!

Since so many ingredients go into one bowl, Jeonju bibimbap must be mixed with chopsticks to prevent the rice from being mashed. It looks good and tastes even better!

- Jeonju has traditionally been the place for bibimbap. People traveled from all over to taste it. It’s really healthy, because so many different vegetables go in it. Then you need to put in a drop of sesame oil to complete the dish. It’s really delicious.
- The ratio of gochujang sauce and vegetables is perfect. Vegetables all retained their crunchy texture. It’s really delicious. I’ve cleaned the bowl, but I still want to have some more.

There were also stalls for kongnamul gukbap, steaming hot bowl of bean sprout soup and rice, at the festival site.

Ms. Shin Gyeong-ja is the owner of the 58-year-old kongnamul gukbap restaurant, Hanilgwan. This soup made with lots of bean sprouts and seasoned with fermented shrimp sauce is great for hangover. It’s the bean sprouts which make Jeonju kongnamul gukbap so special.

Kongnamul gukbap is great for relieving a hangover. Since it’s full of vitamin C, it’s a good cure for a cold. Bean sprout of Jeonju is special because it’s grown with Jeonju water rich in iron. We make the soup stock with the water the bean sprout was cooked in and vegetables like daikon radish, onions, and black mushrooms, as well as dried anchovies. The soup is then seasoned with the fermented shrimp sauce. Our customers love the refreshing flavor.

- It’s so delicious. The crunchiness of bean sprouts is great. The soup is great on the day after heavy drinking. It’s delicious.
- Jeonju is known for its bean sprout soup. The bean sprouts, the egg, and the hot broth make the flavor very complex and tasty. It’s great for a hangover.
- It’s my first time having kongnamul gukbap in Jeonju. The broth really is terrific.

Another iconic Korean food is ddeok, the ultimate party food in Korea. Visitors at the festival eagerly looked on as a ddeok maker pummeled the sweet rice dough with a huge hammer.

The sticky sweet rice dough was rolled in bean powder to make the nutty-flavored injeolmi. Even foreigners seemed to like the soft and chewy texture of injeolmi.

It was fun pounding the rice mixture. I found out how ddeok is made and glad to have had the opportunity to experience Korean culture. Injeolmi has a great texture and tastes like peanut butter.

Food is a great way to learn more about a country’s culture and history. We hope the Korea Food Festival had advertised the excellence cuisine to more people from home and abroad.