Lessons from Korean Temple Food for a Plant-Forward Food Future

Published 03/23/2023 in Scholar Travel Stipend

Written by Vaneshia Reed | 03/23/2023

I became attracted to the idea of learning more about temple food when I saw Jeong Kwan Sunim’s special on Netflix’s Chef ’s Table. I was attracted to her poise, grace, and humility though she has become Asia’s most revered chef. And the way her admirers, namely other revered chefs, described her food. Delicious, bursting with flavor, incredible texture profiles, and…vegan. They said that what she is able to do with such simple ingredients blew their mind. And in that moment, sitting on my little loveseat in Pfoho, I knew I had to meet her.

Two winters later, I arrived in Seoul, Korea with a mission to learn more about temple food and what I can extrapolate from this culinary practice to help with my own mission of getting more fruits and vegetables on the plate, especially in communities where the diets are not very plant-rich. To do this, I visited the Donghwasa Temple and the Baekyangsa Temple, which is home to Jeong Kwan Sunim.

I believe one of our most critical global issues is working towards a food system that is equitable, sustainable, and supports the health of our minds, bodies, and environment. I also believe that we are in t he midst of a food revolution and that people are starting to think more critically about what we put in our bodies and where our food comes from. Given the Milken Institute’s focus on “physical, mental, and environmental health” and learning innovative ways to tackle “some of our most critical global issues," along with the Milken Family Foundation mission to help people “lead “productive and satisfying lives” through education, I was excited to to learn new techniques and philosophies about how we can better care for our minds, bodies and environments, and how to teach others to do so as well.

Temple food is vegan food that does not include the “five pungent spices:” onions, garlic, scallions, leeks, and chives. According to Kwan, these ingredients produce too much spiritual energy which prevents a monk’s spirit from reaching a state of calmness, which is not good for meditation. She says that food is deeply connected to spiritual energy and to nature. Temple food, according to her, is simple, yet “flavored with nature.” As the name implies, temple food is that which is traditionally prepared and eaten in temples. It is the diet of buddhist monks and is believed to promote a balanced and healthy diet to provide the monks what they need for mental clarity. The above-mentioned five forbidden ingredients are thought to block mental clarity, which prevents the monks from having a clear mind to meditate and reach enlightenment. One of my instructors shared that, more specifically, it is the smell of these ingredients seeping through the pores and on the breath that would become a distraction for monks who often sit in a room to meditate together for 14-16 hours. While most people are not monks and may not even practice meditation, I believe that we can learn a lot from Korean cuisine and especially temple food when thinking about the future of food and the makeup of our plates.

For my first Templestay experience, I visited Donghwasa Temple. I participated in both their t emple food cooking program and their resting program, in which I ate all meals in their dining hall to continue to learn more about temple food. For our meals, we had a variety of vegetables and grains every single day. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten this kind of variety of vegetables in such a short time span. My aunt always tells me that she believes the perfect plate should mirror the colors of the rainbow, and that t he more colorful your plate the more likely it is that you are getting the diversity of nutrients your body needs. There were many times during my stay where my plate looked as close to the rainbow as it ever has. We had rice (black and white), barley, chickpeas, beans, rice cake soup, tofu soup, seaweed soup, different kinds of seaweed, different types of mushrooms (shitake, oyster, button, etc.), potatoes, sweet potatoes, more kinds of peppers than I could name (e.g. shishito, bell, cucumber, etc.), kimchi and other l acto-fermented veggies, carrots, radish, tofu prepared at least five different ways, and more vegetables that I could not even name but were equally delicious.

My tummy was literally doing flips, but in a good way. I was reminded of the “periodic table” of foods to promote a healthy gut microbiome that was passed out during the last Milken Alumni Summit i n 2020. Mike Milken talked about how we need to diversify the produce we eat to support a healthy gut microbiome, and how it’s connected to our immune systems and more. With the presence of so many l acto-fermented foods, like kimchi, many aspects of the Korean diet already support a healthy gut microbiome. But I think temple food takes it to a new level.

Since I stayed at Donghwasa Temple for a longer period of time, it was fun to see (or shall I say hear) how people’s microbiome reacted to the temple food. After the first night, during our morning meditation, just about everyone’s stomach was growling and making lots of gurgling and whining noises. After the first group left and the second group arrived, I noticed the same thing happened but my stomach had stopped making noises. By the third group, I was convinced that I could actually hear our stomachs processing the temple food. Like I could hear our gut microbiomes resetting and bursting with excitement, like “Whoa, what is all this incredible food I am receiving?!” By the fourth day, my stomach had not only settled, but I was also feeling less bloated and like I had more energy. I am interested in l earning how the gut microbiome will continue to change and adjust with more time eating this diet.

For our cooking class, we made three dishes: seasoned persimmon and cucumber peppers, braised radish and king oyster mushrooms, and zucchini and sesame leaf salad. When we arrived, we were divided into groups of three or four to work together. Our stations were set up so that each group would make one of each of the recipes, following the printed recipes and guidance of the instructor. What ensued turned out to be pretty chaotic. The translator was out sick so one of the students was left to translate as best as she could and instead of the instructor and her assistant doing a demo at the front as planned, they ended up bouncing around to each group to show us individually how to do our tasks, which was pretty inefficient. The assistant even measured out everyone’s ingredients, although the measurements were on the printed recipes. Everyone seemed stressed, which was only enhanced by the fact that the class was only two hours, including eating time. By the end, unfortunately, most people chowed down their food and wanted to get out of there. There was not much time for reflection, but the food was delicious and I was glad to leave with printed recipes that I could try again on my own time.

At Baekyangsa Temple, we did not cook but instead watched a demo by Jeong Kwan Sunim and ate the food she prepared after. It was fun to watch her in her element cooking, tasting and adjusting flavors based on her expertise. As the only English speaker, though, I had to rely on rough translations, which made following the demo a bit challenging. And because she really cooks from experience, there were no recipes or anything to follow. I also didn’t know what some of the ingredients were. So while the tasting experience was wonderful, I left with more of an appreciation for her cooking philosophy than tangible tips to try to carry it forward. Like the Donghwasa experience, I also believe the class could have benefited from time at the end to reflect on what we were eating and especially to ask questions.

Given the time of year that I visited, pretty much none of our produce at Donghwasa came from the farms. At Baekyangsa, there was more preservation of ingredients from Jeong Kwan’s farm, but still some reliance on outside ingredients. I would love to return someday during a warm season to learn more about the farming and sustainability efforts of temples and the true makeup of a temple farm to table diet. It was interesting to compare this experience to my culinary apprenticeship in Italy, where so much of our efforts were focused on sustainability and growing fresh produce; but the truth is that our plates were not very balanced, let alone healthy. Sure, having locally grown, organic produce on your plate certainly provides a certain amount of health benefits. But we usually fried our eggplant or bogged i t down with cheese, added layers of dairy, cheese, and pasta and rice to all of our meals. The grain and meat to vegetable ratio was often higher than I would have liked. And while the food was delicious, I was bloated just about every day during my time there. We need balance.

With so much of the food tech movement focused on alternative meats and proteins, I think our greatest challenge will continue to be how to get people to eat less meat (no matter if it is farm-grown or l ab-grown) and to eat more vegetables, fruits, and other foods that support a healthy gut. Some people think that veganism is the answer to many of our problems but I’ve seen first hand that simply turning vegan does not necessarily mean that someone will have a more balanced diet. One could eat rice and beans every day and technically be vegan. Like many experts have shared, I am interested in how to promote not just a vegan diet, but one that is truly rich in a diversity of veggies, fruits, lacto-fermented foods, protein, and healthy fats. But we have to work really hard to make vegetables desirable and delicious, which we don’t always do.

Temple food serves as a great model for how we can achieve this type of diet and build a future plate with produce people will actually want to eat. While the teaching practices in each temple stay did not achieve this goal on its own, I think practices from each teaching program, along with the hands-on l earning I experienced in Tuscany, could be combined to build a robust and effective model for how to spread this knowledge to vegans and die-hard carnivores alike.