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Special Experience-cooking temple food

"I wanted to make the general public feel wonder about the Buddhism and firm will of a monk and nun through cooking the temple food that cannot be easily experienced by them." – Buddhist priest, Jeok Mun

As food kinds change rapidly in the modern society that is rapidly changing, the awareness of foods has been changed. As society gets more complex and newer, if a quality of life is enhanced, it will be the addition of another hue to the rainbow, but their balance started to be broken. Fast foods that occupied the food culture sector in an instant since they could replace the diet simply are now giving a risk signal to the ‘health’ of modern people.

Sudosa (Temple), a temple designated for slow food in Gyeonggi-do
The Sudosa is famous for temple stay and traditional temple food. This temple located in the inner skirt of a village captures people through food missionary work. In agricultural society, people did farming according to the 24 division of the year. Today the wisdom of the forefather is required who obtained food by changing the season food and cooking method according to the climate. Thus now it may be natural that the temple food emerged as a food of interest by the modern people. The temple food is neat and simple so that it does not give a burden to the stomach or intestine, since priests cook food with a mind of training himself. It is clear that such a temple food is a precious healthy food full of wisdom of Korean forefather that should be considered by the modern people who suffer from various adult diseases due to stress and excessive meat eating.

Lecture on temple food
Jeokmun, a priest, is a chief priest who gives a lecture for two hours once a week, has researched temple food from a long time ago. Also he continues to research by establishing the ‘traditional Buddhist Temple Food Research Institute’, and gives a lecture about cooking temple food in person, and generally manages the Sudosa currently. The prejudice that temple food is eaten only during training and is special contrary to the food eaten in the world disappears through experience. The temple food is more simply cooked than it was expected and cooked by using materials that can be applied to real life. A clear difference from the food in the world is to use natural condiments instead of chemical condiments. If you are ready for suffering from some troublesome, the temple food is the best for caring the health of family and upgrading food life to the food good for our health. An one-hour class is about the theory of temple food, and the other one-hour class is practice along with a priest.

Stuff that can be easily obtained, dishes that can be cooked easily by anyone
Even if the food is a temple food, special materials are not needed. Temple food is mostly cooked with a bean curd that can be easily purchased in the mart around us. The bean curd is a representative food for supplementing the nutrition for priests, well-being food and representative leader of slow food. Thus, priests were pleased to eat the bean curd as a lacked protein supplementary source along with mushrooms.
We are surprised at seeing the dishes that are cooked rapidly by using bean curd. A black sesame bean curd fry that is cooked by cutting the bean curd in the form of sliced radish kimchi, covering it with starch, frying it slightly, and boiling down. An applied bean curd dish that considered the sight and taste of children by putting hot pepper paste. The rice topped with shiitake that is loved by anyone. Like these dishes, temple food is not cooked by special materials even though the food is a temple food, thus we can have a confidence in cooking temple food.

Secret of natural condiment
The wonder about how natural condiments are made is unexpectedly solved with ease. The recipe is also simple. Soak shiitakes, put dashida, and boil them for a long time then the cooking ends. The priest seems to have put barley tea at each interval during cooking, so I asked the recipe after practice ended.
(Recipe of shiitake infused water that is a natural condiment: Soak dry shiitake in the water, and when the shiitake water is infused, put dry sea tangles and boil for a long time. * Shiitake infused water is used instead of chemical condiments. )

Medicine Buddha Temple where temple food is cooked
The Medicine Buddha means a Buddhist that cures the disease of the sentient beings to lead them to sudden enlightenment, and in the Traditional Temple Food Experience Center, the name, Medicine Buddha, is hung. Considering that most of disease of modern people started from fat due to food, we can understand why the name of the temple food experience center is the Medicine Buddha.
The temple food is cooked not using five stimulating vegetables (Welsh onion, garlic, wild rocambole, leek, radish red) and also meat or salted fish is not used for temple food. Every temple food is not prohibited without condition. The temple food is cooked considering the nutrients needed for bodies of monks. When we enter the Hall of Medicine Buddha, we will see the cooking classroom equipped with modern kitchen appliances. Thus the curiosity of what about the temple food cooking place is gets an answer. The cooking classroom has a clean modern typed facility whose moving distance has no difficulty in cooking.

Recipe [Black sesame bean curd fry, bean curd application dishes, rice topping with shiitake, Jehotang]

Do your best whatever you may learn
The three month basic program opened once a week is a time when we learn not only temple food but also upright attitude toward life. The chief priest tells a subject of conversation while watching the closing ceremony and this subject as follows makes trainees reflect on their lives.

Sucheojakju Ipcheogaejin

"If a person maintains his/her subjects at any place, the place where the person is located is widely true.” It means that the standing place is a heaven, truth, and the person should be a hero of his/her own life. The chief priest replaces this word by the closing ceremony. Trainees are trained automatically while they cook food and reflect on their lives. On the faces of trainees, who received the completion certificates and ten sentences for health consisting of eight admonitions and another two admonitions written in the Song dynasty, smiles play.


Recipe

[Black sesame bean curd fry]

Stuff One piece of bean curd, 1 cup of starch powder, 3 cups of edible oil, 1 tea spoon of salt, two table spoons of sugar, 1 table spoon of starch syrup, 1 tea spoon of black sesame
Recipe
1. As for bean curd, select a hard one as possible, cut it into a form of sliced radish kimchi whose four sides are 2 cm, sprinkle salt a little to season the cut bean curd, and remove water.
2. Apply starch powder to the prepared bean curd and fry the bean curd twice in the oil at the temperature of 180 degree.
3. Boil sugar, starch syrup in a pot not stirring them, and when they turn brown, put the fired bean curd to quickly mix together, and then sprinkle black sesames evenly. (the ration of sugar: starch syrup: shiitake infused water =1:1: 3/2 of a measuring cup)
4. If this dish is left alone for a long time, it becomes damp so that taste gets worse. Thus it is better to eat quickly.
* Nutrition memo: Bean curd is very easily digested, and bean curd cookie tastes excellent when they are hot.
Black sesame is an energy source for brain that enhances the learning efficiencies of children. Fired food should be eaten in a day.



[Applied bean curd dish]

Applied bean curd dish using remaining stuff - snack
Recipe

1. Put the shiitake infused water and yellow sugar in a fry pan to boil down it slightly.
2. Put hot pepper paste, soy sauce, and minced vegetables and boil down them.
(Minced vegetables: paprika (red, green, yellow), flagellum)
3. Put remaining fried bean curd, boil down it slightly, and at last put a drop of sesame oil.
* When fried bean curd is remained, put hot pepper paste to make the dish spicy and sweet to eat it.

[Rice topping with shiitakes]
Stuff
6 shiitakes, 1 pack of winter mushroom, 100g of button mushroom, each half of piemto (red, blue), 4~5 gingko nuts or pine nuts, 100g of bamboo shoot, seasoning sauce for rice topping with sesame oil (4 cups of seasoned water, 2 table spoons of soy sauce, 2 table spoons of sugar, a little of salt, a little of pepper, 4 tea spoons of water starch)

Recipe
1. Soak shiitakes in the water and shred them finely.
2. As for winter mushrooms, tear apart them into appropriate sizes. As for button mushrooms, cut along the mushroom forms.
3. Cut pimentos into appropriate sizes.
4. Season the shiitakes, which were shredded finely, with salt and fry them with sesame oil.
5. Season the cut button mushrooms with a little salt, fry them with sesame oil and then put pimentos and bamboo shoots to fry them together.

6. Put the water mixed with starch into the dashima water slightly to make appropriate density and make colors with soy sauce. After switching off the fire, put a little sesame oil.
7. Finally, put winter mushrooms like above stuff to season them with salt, and put sesame oil to make aroma. Then pour this hot sauce on the rice.
* When you fry stuff, fry the stuff with sesame oil slightly.


Jehotang (for Dano Festival)
Stuff
600 g of Japanese apricot, 20 g of white sandalwood, 40g of amomi semen, 3kg of honey, appropriate quantity of fresh water, pine nuts
Recipe
1. Wash medicine materials well-shredded finely, pour fresh water to them and boil down them.
2. When medicine materials are cooked, wring them contained in fine hemp wrapping cloth and produce juice.
3. Put honey into the filtered juice and boil down them.
4. Cool down them and put them in a jar. When this dish is eaten, float three to four pine nuts and then mix the dish with cold water to eat it.

(box) How to apply for cooking temple food
Tel: 031) 672-3169, 681-7732
Currently Sudosa operates the ‘regular lecture of traditional temple food’ (refer to www.templetfood.co.kr) of three-month program and the ‘temple food experience’ program included in the temple stay for the general public.

Slow food Slow food means the food life campaign that started in a small village of Italy in 1986 for the purpose of cutting the standardization of tastes and equalization of global senses of tastes through mass production, standardization, industrialization, and mechanization, and succeeding and developing traditional and various foods and food life cultures that meet the characteristic of each country and each region.
In particular, slow food is a campaign that occurred in opposition to the ‘fast food’ of McDonald, an American global hamburger chain, and when McDonald advanced into Rome of Italy to threaten traditional foods, a food life campaign started to be developed under the cause of pleasure of tastes and preservation of traditional foods, etc.., and in a few years this campaign developed into an international food and wine campaign. The campaign that started in bra province of Italy in 1986 has developed into a global campaign with around 70,000 regular members from around 40 countries currently.

[Tourism Information]
Inquiry: 031) 682-3169, 681-7732
Homepage: www.templefood.co.kr

◆ Location
Integrated search: Sudosa
Private car: Seohaean expressway →Seopyeongtaek IC →go straight 50m and turn right at the crossroad (direction to Joam) →5km (5 minutes) →Hyeondai Oil Station in the left at the distance of 5km away →Turn left in front of a traffic sign and brown milepost (use the 2nd left turn traffic lane) →Go around a bus stop to advance into the yellow line one way road →Sudosa at the end of the village
Mass transportation: Get off at Pyeongtaek Station (Subway Line No. 1) or Pyeongtaek bus terminal →Board the bus of no.80 or no. 98 (20 minutes) →Get off at Anjung bus terminal →Use the vehicle of Sudosa
※ Vehicle of Sudosa (76 no 7854, black Starlex – Saturday 3:00 p.m. starts from Anjung bus terminal)
Seoul Nambu terminal → Get off at Anjung terminal → Use vehicles (76 no 7854, black Starlex – Saturday 3:00 p.m.)

◆ Things to see around Sudosa: Pyeongtaek port, General Lee Daewon's Grave, Lake Pyeongtaek Attractions

Author Kim Bok-Nyeo, Journalist (kinder@gto.or.kr)
Photo Park Min-Woo, Journalist (semtlejjang@gto.or.kr)