Ven. Sunjae, master of Korean Temple Food, holds a basket full of vegetables she grows in her garden in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

YANGPYEONG, Gyeonggi Province — It was with renewed attention and mindfulness to nature-based lifestyle and environment — after the COVID-19 pandemic — that we visited Ven. Sunjae's residence in this town about two hours east of Seoul. The nation's first master of Korean Temple Food had mentioned that she held temple food classes in her residence, which she referred to as "togul" or "cave." The monk, renowned for her tireless schedule of lecturing in Korea and overseas, was giving monthly classes on making kimchi on that early June day.

Ven. Sunjae mixes up radish and Chinese cabbage kimchi, with a sauce, showing her intermediate students how to make temple-style kimchi at her residence/ kitchen in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, June 6. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

The class was about making not just one but five types of kimchi. The five were a watery kudzu vine kimchi, a small radish and cabbage kimchi with emphasis on using watermelon water, a cube-type radish kimchi, a kimchi with soybean water and a cucumber kimchi with Zanthoxylum piperitum that smells highly like coriander. The kudzu vine kimchi was good for enhancing estrogen, Ven. Sunjae explained, while the watermelon was recommended as summer food helpful for reducing thirst and helping with urination. The Zanthoxylum piperitum is used for its strong flavor, which traditionally was used before the arrival of red chili pepper into Korea. For this temple food kimchi, the five common Korean ingredients — garlic, green onions, leeks, wild chives and Chinese squill — are not used. Neither are salted fish or shrimp, found in most regions of Korea.

Her students were those who had already finished a year of temple-food classes with her at the Korean Bhiksuni Association. She still teaches occasionally at the association, located in Seoul, these days.

Once the mountain of main vegetables were sliced up and salted, they were then poured into a large, circular steel bowl filled with a small amount of vegetable water, "tongmiljuk," or wheat porridge, dried chili pepper and soy sauce. Then the monk mixed them up using both hands in a wide circular motion about 20 to 30 times.

In one of her books, "Temple Food Weaved through Ven. Sunjae's Narrative," she highlights kimchi as comprising the six flavors of food — sweet, salty, sour, bitter, chilly and astringent — crucial to health.

"Kimchi has all the good elements. A food material produced under the soil, radish; food source produced above soil, cabbage and calyptra; one-year plants, pepper and sticky rice porridge: multi-year products, fruit; and food source produced in the sea, sea staghorn, dashima and salt." Seasonally minding to take in kimchi could improve the health, she wrote. This food practice was a given in past Korean households, but not so in today's Korea.

She worked speedily, completing the final stages of the five kimchi in about two hours. The ingredients were all prepared beforehand. Ven. Sunjae rapidly gave instructions, and the students asked even the smallest details such as how to slice the vegetables or when to start the rice for lunch. It's a signal of resonance that she inspires in people around her — respect or compassion, hope and healing — through her food.

For anyone who makes food, Ven. Sunjae agreed to share the kimchi recipes. "But they may need my soy sauce," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Her students appraised her temple food cooking as traditionalist, with emphasis on self-prepared soy sauce "ganjang" and soybean paste "doenjang." The two sauces of ganjang and doenjang, along with "gochujang" or red chili pepper paste, are pillars in Korean food as a whole.

Ven. Sunjae, first Master of Korean Temple Food, smiles amid an array of "onggi" or earthenware vessels storing "ganjang" or soy sauce and "doenjang" or soybean paste that are the foundations for her temple food, at her residence in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

"Doenjang jjigae" or soybean paste soup with dried shiitake mushroom, zucchini and green chili pepper based in vegetable soup, made by Ven. Sunjae for lunch, June 6 in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Throughout her monastic life that began in 1980, she has been conveying temple food, its methods and recipes to help people attend to body and mind before and after ailments. Personally, her 1994 diagnosis with hepatic cirrhosis drove her work too. She was named "Master of Korean Temple Food" by the Buddhist Jogye order in 2016 and was awarded a third-class Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit in 2019. The doctor at that time said she had one year to live at most, but she has maintained her health. Recently, she caught COVID-19 in 2022 after a lecture trip to San Francisco, where she had been invited to hold temple food classes for Koreans based there.

"I felt like I was losing 500 grams per day at that time," she said. "Some people around that time passed away," but the monk held on thinking that she could not pass away while her mother was still alive.

Ven. Sunjae separates "doenjang" or soybean paste and "ganjang" or soybean sauce from fermented "meju" blocks in an earthenware vessel at her residence/kitchen in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, June 6. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

So she slowed down a bit. She did increase her daily routine of drinking naturally made ganjang or doenjang mixed with water a few times a day, known to help digestion as well as eliminate any toxins remaining in food materials.

While generally gentle and easy-mannered, she is firm on what temple food is. Can we see it as vegan?

Temple food is not automatically translatable to vegan, Ven. Sunjae said. "The Korean temple food is 'seonsik,'" the food that monks consume for sustenance and for practice.

How should people find it as tasty and resist temptations of modern-day cuisines at Korea's numerous restaurants?

"We need to change the mindset, then temple food will come across as palatable," she said. She said she has never really registered the fact that her town of residence has numerous restaurants serving "haejangguk" or hearty meat broth with rice and vegetables. "I have not really entertained the thought of eating them. I know how they are made," she said. Buddhist teachings have taught her that every food is medicine and there are living organisms even in one drop of water.

"In eating temple food, you are imbibing life, health and wisdom," she said.

This wisdom is knowing the nature of the food ingredients and knowing the state of one's health and finding or trying to find the right match between the two. It could mean a sense of humility in realizing that people are dependent on nature for their food, respecting the work that goes into making food without artificial ingredients and taking only what one needs.

Since her first designation as temple food master, five more masters have been designated. Her brush with the severe case of COVID-19 has reminded her that she should document her food work, as she gives foreground to the younger generation of temple food masters.

"In addition to temple food, because I spent a long time on food-making I have knowledge of older, traditional Korean foods that I want to revitalize for today," she said. She cited the various different menus at local "jumak" or casual restaurants or bars of Korea in the early 20th century that are worth restoring, she mentioned.

A crystallized salt produced from Ven. Sunjae's long-fermented soy sauce stored in an "onggi" or earthenware vessel at her residence/kitchen in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, June 6. Korea TImes photo by Shim Hyun-chul

That will mean staying true to the details of traditional Korean recipes. For Ven. Sunjae, it has meant in particular staying true to the basics of making natural soybean paste and soy sauce, using natural salt, the replete sunlight that sizzled on foreheads on that day and the warm wind that blew in her residence standing atop a hill. In the second part of her class, she and her students took on the task of separating the fermented "meju" or blocks of fermented beans to divide them into soybean paste and soy sauce. It was laborious work, a practice of constantly separating the beans from the liquid or the soy sauce it has produced during fermentation from one big "onggi" or earthenware vessel to another one. As others withered under the labor and the sun and talked about possible body aches they felt coming, the monk refused to do so. "If you mean to work, this is not work," as gesteured to her students to clean up and began preparing for their dinner, a rice noodle with fried green zucchini.

A kimchi dish served up at lunch at Ven. Sunjae's class held at her residence in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, June 6. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

**A recipe for pure watermelon juice-based baby radish and mixed cabbage kimchi

— one bundle of baby radish ("yeolmu")

— one bundle of mixed cabbage ("Eotgari baechu")

— one-fourth of a watermelon, ground to juice without the seeds

— soy sauce, salt, red chili pepper, whole wheat porridge ("tongmiljuk" or whole wheat powder porridge), vegetable-based soup (dashima or kelp, radish, dried shiitake mushrooms)

Wash the young radish and mixed cabbage and leave in with salt for while. Next, juice the watermelon and then pour in all the whole wheat porridge, vegetable soup, soy sauce, salt and ground red chili pepper to complete a kimchi sauce. Then toss the salted (and cut) baby radish and mixed cabbage together gently.