| Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, demonstrates how to make grilled eggplant from a recipe that was passed down to her by a senior nun, the late Ven. Seongkwan, during an interview with The Korea Times, at the temple in Daejeon on Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Buddhist nun chef explains how temple cuisine is different from vegan food
By Park Ji-won
Amid the growing interest in veganism throughout the world and health concerns due to the spread of COVID-19, temple food has recently been getting attention as a healthy food. Both temple food and vegan cuisine are prepared with vegetarian ingredients, but they are quite different when it comes to certain details, especially the use of meat.
Few people actually know that the use of meat is allowed in temple food under strict conditions. According to Ven. Beopsong, a Buddhist nun who is an expert of temple cuisine, masters and practitioners of Buddhism (called “suhengja” in Korean) are allowed to eat meat when their lives are at risk.
| Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple and one of Korea's masters of temple cuisine, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the temple in Daejeon on Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Ven. Beopsong is one of Korea's leading masters of temple cuisine. She has been teaching Korean temple food classes at various Buddhist institutions in Seoul, such as Dongguk University in Jung District, the Korean Temple Food Center in Jongno District and Bongeun Temple in Gangnam District, while teaming up with chefs from around the world ― from Austria to Australia ― to offer one-off cooking lessons.
“We must eat to survive. The Buddha did not designate a 'do-not-eat' list. He just asked us as practitioners always to avoid getting too thin so as not to get ill, to eat without greed and to avoid killing for meat. Nuns and monks will not be familiar with meat recipes, but we may cook with meat to avoid getting too thin and to share food as offerings (“gongyang” in Korean) among the practitioners at the temple.”
Veganism is considered to be about promoting a healthy lifestyle through plant-based recipes. Of course, there are many types of vegans, and, except for fruitarians, vegans are allowed to eat all vegetables. But temple cuisine differs from vegan cuisine in that it doesn't use five specific herbs ― namely garlic, green onions, garlic chives, wild chives and onions ― because these are believed to prevent Buddhist practitioners from maintaining their calmness and from suppressing their libido.
| Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, chops eggplant ― a seasonal summer vegetable in Korea ― for her grilled eggplant recipe, learned from a senior nun, the late Ven. Seongkwan, during an interview with The Korea Times at the temple in Daejeon on Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
| Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, shows how to make grilled perilla leaves ― another crop that is available naturally during the summer season in Korea ― with the original recipe passed down to her from another nun, her senior, the late Ven. Seongkwan, during an interview with The Korea Times at the temple in Daejeon on Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Ven. Beopsong's motto for temple cuisine is simple: cook seasonal and easy. In her 2015 Korean-language book, “Beopsong's Table from Nature,” which has about 80 temple cuisine recipes, some of them only take 10 minutes to cook with ingredients we can easily get in Korea during each season.
“Although many people might think they are very complicated, my temple food recipes are simple and easy. Of course, there are a few recipes that are common to temple cuisine in general, but every temple has its own unique recipes. For instance, there is a series of original and easy recipes that we nuns at Yeongseon Temple have been preserving. Anyone can make temple food using the ingredients that are widely available seasonally and enjoy it every day,” she said.
“Compared to some other countries, Korea has four distinct seasons, and therefore a variety of vegetables and ingredients. In spring, for example, there are herbs sprouting in the mountains and fields, such as mugwort and butterbur. In summer, there are fruits, roots and beans ripening in the trees or growing along the ground. People are designed to eat foods that are available according to the seasons. Especially if you're Korean, eating the right foods according to the seasons is the way we will be able to pass this beautiful land on to our descendants intact. Otherwise, eating the wrong foods could be toxic to both human beings and to nature as well.”
| Seasonal side dishes prepared for practitioners and visitors to eat for lunch at Yeongseon Temple in Daejeon, Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Ven. Beopsong, however, emphasized the fact that temple food is not all about maintaining a vegan diet. It is about continuing to practice the teachings of Buddhism. Temple food developed to be seasonal as well as to be shared, which is one of Buddhism's core values.
“Temple cuisine is basically designed as a religious food with certain rules for eating it. It includes versatile seasonal foods as it is made to be offered and shared with others,” she explained.
“Historically, temples have received donations of food from people during every season, whether the harvest was good or bad. In the past, lacking refrigerators, nuns and monks had to work hard to come up with clever recipes to consume and store the food without wasting any of it, and one way they did so was by sharing it with many people.”
As part of her efforts to fulfill the Buddha's teachings, her temple has been running a facility to give food to the underprivileged in the region since 2006. They provide side dishes to elderly people as well as offer free meals to people who visit the temple.
| Ven. Beopsong, left, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, delivers her online guest lecture on Korean temple cuisine in the plant-based food course at the renowned French culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu, at its London branch, on Aug. 18. Courtesy of Cultural Corps of Korean Buddhism |
Recently, she has added one more unique line to her resume. She delivers online lectures on Korean temple cuisine in a cooking course run by the renowned French culinary school Le Cordon Bleu's London branch. Her classes focus on the philosophy of the food, which is widely known to be vegetarian, and teach temple cuisine recipes ― such as kimchi ― to the institute's students, for about three hours each.
Starting in April, two of her guest lectures on Korean temple cuisine became regular parts of the plant-based food course, which was launched in 2020. This time is the first that lectures on Korean temple cuisine have been included in a regular course of the French culinary institute.
Like many other nuns and monks, who are obliged to prepare their meals for themselves or for their colleagues in the temples they live in, she learned how to prepare temple cuisine under her senior, nun Ven. Seongkwan, who died in 2013, while serving as a chef at various temples since becoming a Buddhist nun in 1996. As there were no recipe books or particular designated training courses, she had to learn it directly from the people around her.
“There were no books or instructions from senior monks or nuns on temple cuisine. We had to learn naturally by living with them for many years. My body ended up remembering the recipes according to the change of seasons. But I realized that I was as good at making food, because my colleagues, who ate what I made, liked my food very much. Afterwards, our temple became famous for sharing its delicious meals with people. At times, more than 800 practitioners and visitors would gather to eat one meal.”
| Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, serves herself food during lunch hour at the temple in Daejeon, Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Lost legacy, environment
She has been actively teaching and sharing the wisdom of temple food during the past few years, but until then, she was shy about standing in front of people. However, thinking about the fact that many temple food recipes are about to go extinct, given that there are few interested in carrying on the tradition of learning temple cooking while living as a nun or monk, as well as the growing environmental pollution created by contemporary eating habits, she decided to speak up about the importance of practicing temple food's philosophy and to share the unique recipes that she has learned.
“The monk who led Tongdo Temple died suddenly without sharing their decades-old secret recipe for soybean sauce, one of the symbols of the temple. So now nobody knows how to make it anymore. Since the beginning of the 2000s, the population of nuns and monks has been aging. I am actually one of the nuns who is still relatively young. I heard that some 200 nuns and monks die every year, while only 20 people want to become one. So I decided to share as many as recipes as I can and to give lectures, in order to leave a legacy for history.”
“I think Buddhist culture is the culmination of all kinds of cultures. But, nowadays, it appears that people may not want to become monks, as it is too tough to follow the religious rules, especially the bans on types of food. Meanwhile, the numbers of Buddhist followers and monks are on the rise in Western countries, especially in European countries, such as Germany and France. About 20 years from now, it is possible that I could end up being designated as a living national treasure, as there may be no one left to carry on this legacy.”
| Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple and one of Korea's temple food masters, poses during an interview with The Korea Times at the temple in Daejeon, Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
She emphasized that eating seasonal food is relevant both to our lives and to the environment, in terms of leaving the land clean and healthy for future generations. Moreover, doing so appears to be a hard goal to achieve without changing our current eating habits and farming methods.
“I believe in the 'butterfly effect' and so worry about how our everyday behaviors contribute to climate change. People often want to be able to eat year-round vegetables such as perilla leaves. So farmers build greenhouses in order to farm those 'crazy' crops and then use coal to heat them, producing carbon dioxide, which warms and damages the earth. Just like that, I am afraid that our current forms of living and farming will melt the planet's ice, and we could end up leaving the environment in a very unhealthy state to our descendents. But by simply eating seasonal food, we can save our own lives and the planet.”
Two Original Recipes from Yeongseon Temple
| As perilla leaves are a seasonal summer vegetable in Korea, seen here is a plate of grilled perilla leaves, made by Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, according to the original recipe she learned from another nun, her senior, the late Ven. Seongkwan, during an interview with The Korea Times at the temple in Daejeon, Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Grilled Perilla Leaves
Ingredients:
30 perilla leaves, 5 chestnuts (thinly and diagonally sliced), 5 dates (thinly and diagonally sliced)
Red pepper powder (1T), soy sauce (1T), perilla oil (1T), jocheong (syrup made from dried and ground sprouted barley and rice) (1t), sesame seeds (1T)
Preparation:
In a small bowl, combine all of the ingredients except the perilla leaves. Briefly mix the sauce, then spread it onto each of the perilla leaves individually. In a frying pan, grill both sides of the perilla leaves in sets of five, on high heat, for one to two minutes each.
| As eggplant is another seasonal summer vegetable in Korea, seen is a plate of grilled eggplant made by Ven. Beopsong, the chief Buddhist nun at Yeongseon Temple, according to the original recipe she learned from another nun, her senior, the late Ven. Seongkwan, during an interview with The Korea Times at the temple in Daejeon, Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Grilled Eggplant
Ingredients:
One eggplant
Red pepper powder (1T), soy sauce (1T), sesame oil (1T), sesame seeds (1T), 2 red peppers minced, water (2T)
Preparation:
Slice the eggplant in half lengthwise and cut it into several pieces (approximately 10cm in length). Cross-hatch the skin of the sliced eggplant. Steam it for about seven minutes. In the meantime, combine the remaining ingredients. In a frying pan, grill both sides of the steamed eggplant pieces, while spooning the sauce onto them, for several minutes at high heat.