Exhibit recreates flavors, table settings of Goryeo kingdom
Art and culture flourished in the ancient Goryeo kingdom from 918 to 1392. Its civilization gave the country its modern name, Korea, and many things considered typically Korean date to then, including vegetarian dishes, traditional alcoholic beverages and different types of teas. They were served, of course, on Goryeo celadon.
However, research on the culinary culture of Goryeo has suffered from a lack of artifacts and historical records. That has made it difficult for institutions to organize exhibitions on the Goryeo civilization.
Despite those challenges, the Arumjigi Culture Keepers Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded to protect and preserve traditional Korean culture, has organized an exhibit called, “Elegance and Flavor: Imagining the Culinary Culture of Goryeo.”
Since 2004, Arumjigi has been organizing one special exhibition each year and rotated among three broad themes: food, clothing and shelter. It was time to touch on the distant food culture of Korea and Jeong Hee-yeong, the curator of the exhibit, says the foundation was determined to present this difficult subject this year.
“It’s true that the exhibits so far at Arumjigi have focused on the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910),” said Jeong. “So it was about time.” The foundation worked closely with researchers to find traces of food culture in various historical sources such as poems and paintings from the Goryeo and Joseon eras.
“We came to realize that Goryeo was very active in international exchanges,” said Jeong. “The people of Goryeo were open to accepting foreign things and were masterminds of reinterpreting them into something Korean.”
The exhibit is divided into two sections. One attempts to show the food and beverages of Goryeo while the other recreates table settings of the time.
To create tableware, Arumjigi invited 10 artists who work with metal, glass, wood and ceramics to present artworks inspired by Goryeo culture and its celadon so that dishes from 1,000 years back still look appealing to people today.
“Arumjigi’s mission is to uphold traditional culture in a creative way, therefore, it is important for us to work with artists and produce works inspired by the tradition,” said Jeong.
Lee In-chin, a ceramic artist who is also a professor in the Department of Ceramics and Glass at Hongik University, said there are not many artifacts left today from Goryeo but “there’s no doubt in its quality.”
“The detail and the delicate handiwork, I believe, were the best in this era,” said Lee. “I still feel mesmerized when I look at Goryeo celadon despite working in this field for nearly 50 years.”
Lee created Ssanghwajeom Style in the second section. SSanghwajeom is the name of the best-known song from Goryeo. It is said that the name comes from a popular dumpling store.
Inspired by a section of the Taepyeongseongsido, a Joseon-era painting that illustrates approximately 2,000 people’s lives, Lee presents a table setting that is equipped with a charcoal burner, which was typical for tea houses in Goryeo. Lee put red and yellow fabrics on top of the table. According to historical records, bar owners pinned a blue flag onto a flagpole to signify that they sold alcohol, while tea houses used red flags because tea houses served tea boiled over glowing red charcoal. The color red came to symbolize tea houses.
Ceramic artist Kim Hye-jeong also presents works inspired by Goryeo celadon.
“I believe it’s impossible for ceramic artists to restore Goryeo celadon and create the exact same pieces,” said Kim. “Back then, the celadon industry was strongly backed by the country, something like semiconductors today. Specialists were assigned different roles to create each piece of celadon. There was an expert who only spun the wheel, an expert who only worked in front of the cauldron and so on. The pieces weren’t the work of one master artisan. So I think it’s important for artists like us to continue to create works that are inspired by these celadon and help people find the beauty of our tradition in modern pieces as well.”
Arumjigi’s research institute for traditional culture, Onjium, which operates a Michelin-starred restaurant of the same name, worked on recreating food that would have been served at restaurants, bars and tea houses that lined the streets of Byeokrando, Goryeo Dynasty’s main international port located west of its capital Gyegyeong, today’s Kaesong in North Korea. This area was bustling, fuelled by exchanges with neighbors including China and Monglolia. It is said that foreign envoys frequented these shops, also influencing Goryeo’s food culture.
For Ssanghwajeom Style, Onjium introduces food from Kaesong, such as Ssanghwa dumplings, seollongtang (beef-broth soup) and sundae (a type of blood sausage). These foods are paired with Kaesong soju and Bongaeju wine.
Onjium created a video clip that introduces more Kaesong foods, such as wrapped kimchi, yeoryamyeokjeok (barbecued beef), and joraengi tteokguk (cocoon-shaped rice cake soup). It’s an attempt to show “how Goryeo food and drinks look so beautiful and elegant on dishes, bowls and jars created by the artists,” the foundation said.
Vegetarians might get excited to get their hands on some of the recipes for the vegetarian table inside the Joseon-style hanok (traditional Korean house) on the second floor. Since Buddhism was prevalent during the Goryeo Dynasty, vegetarian cuisine naturally developed.
Onjium said it came up with 11 different vegetarian dishes after studying “Goryeodogyeong,” the first historical record of Goryeo written by envoy Xu Jing of China in 1123 and “Goryeosa,” the main surviving historical record of Goryeo composed nearly a century after the fall of the dynasty during the reign of King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty.
To develop a vegetarian menu using ingredients such as tofu, taro, geumchae (lettuce), gonpogwak (seaweed and kelp) and ginseng, Arumjigi said it referred to literary works like “Dongguk Isang Gukjip,” a collection of works by author and scholar Yi Gyu-bo.
Onjium chefs Cho Eun-hee and Park Sung-bae, who worked on creating the dishes, told the JoongAng Sunday that it was important for them to properly reinterpret the food from Goryeo because of the dearth of historical records. They said they “studied the era’s religion, culture and literature day and night” and imagined themselves as chefs from Goryeo to come up with the dishes for the exhibit.
The exhibit runs until Nov. 15. Tickets cost 12,000 won ($8.60). The Goryeo cuisine presented by Onjium chefs can also be tried at the restaurant Onjium located next to Arumjigi until next month.
BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]