17th episode by SOIGNÉ: (拌菜: Banchae), the breath of the wild cooking methods because the cooking methods for namul are completely established and most native think they can cook namul to some extent.

If you think about Korean food from the overall aspect of culture instead of types of However, our goal in this episode is to re-illuminate the value of namul by stepping away from food, you will most certainly be reminded of a variety of ‘Namul’. treating namul merely as materials for side dishes and instead focusing on the unique

characteristics of respective ingredients, and to present the direction for our food cultural heritage. Because has many mountains, there were all kinds of naturally grown native wild edible greens and field vegetables since ancient times. Wild herbs and vegetables were food ingredients The gift of the mountains and fields and the link between man and nature, Namul. The breath of that were abundant around us and could be obtained from nature in a natural way. Moreover, the wild is blowing. through the process of drying for preservation, they became usual food reserves that allowed people to have meals even in the winter without much worry for foods. P.S. The main type of namul used in each menu can be vary upon the market since it has different

shipping date and availability for respective types. Namul refers to a combination of side dishes made from plants or vegetables collected from mountains or fields. It is also a generic term for edible wild plant materials. Namul is an First dish - Namul Chips and Grissini important concept that represent a form of food and signifies a history of Korean food culture.

We start off with small bites prepared with namul chips and grissini. Upon deciding namul as Come to think of it, there is rarely a food ingredient in the food culture of our country the theme of our next episode, the first thing that crossed my mind was the image of people in the comparable to namul that has been constantly consumed by people for such a long time without old days walking through mountains and thickets to gather namul. To give the impression of any changes to its core function. What makes namul even more special is that it carries a sense of being in the mountains, we created a snack that would remind our guests of twigs breaking and primitiveness transmitted from the process of collection in the wild and yet is consumed by all in leaves rustling. such a natural manner to this day.

The chip sand that is reminiscent of a fallen leaf in the mountains is made with dried namul leaf, This long-standing familiarity of namul, however, seems to have worked as a disadvantage to its which is brushed with before drying. Between each layers, we combined barley with status in Korean food. Perhaps namul is inclusive of fermented vegetable foods represented by Gamtae((i.e., Ecklonia cava), namul pickle and cured egg yolk to reproduce the texture and flavor. . But we think that the way namul is perceived merely as side dishes made of wild plants or vegetables depreciates the true value and meaning of namul deeply rooted in the food culture of Given that the taste of grissini differs depending on its thickness, we wanted to make it as thin as Korea. possible so that it would give an overall clean texture without being heavy as a starter. But it is

easily broken when baked too thin, it is crucial to find the right thickness. After repeated baking, Recently, many people are experiencing Nordic Cuisine, a style of food from the tasting and discarding, I was able to find the perfect thickness for my recipe and the current 3mm Northern Europe. In fact, Nordic Cuisine has already reached its peak in the overseas and left a grissini was finally completed. great mark in the overall food culture. It created a new food genre with a naturalistic style of cuisine contrasting European food, represented by French and Italian. But when we think about it, Served with the grissini that gives out richer cheese flavor with every bite, is a thick and savory the food customs of Northern Europe trying to accept the ingredients from nature as they are and chorizo sauce. The chorizo sauce works as gentle salty kick between the overall nutty taste and preserve the natural taste as much as possible is no different from our attitude of handling namul. cheese flavor from grissini to save the taste buds from getting tired of the grissini. It is safe to presume that our people has enjoyed namul collected in the mountains for a very long time considering that, among the ingredients for side dishes we consume today, there are many Second dish- Dol-namul (sedum) with snapper cases of medicinal herbs recorded in Dongui-bogam: Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine by Heo Jun. As such, namul is deeply rooted in our culture. 2014 Chateau de la Vieille Chapelle Les Grands Blancs, Bordeaux (Semillon)

As a chef, I have always tried to explore new and beautiful food ingredients. And yet, Sedum is a type of namul that grows in the mountains. It is described as a plant that is ‘good I have also believed that it would be a self-contradiction if I were to avoid familiar domestic for fever relief and detox’ in Dongui-bogam. Being a juicy vegetable, it gives a refreshing taste materials and use only ingredients grown mainly for the purpose of beautiful appearance or and is usually served with spicy raw fish salad. obtained from foreign seeds on limited conditions, simply because I am offering fine-dining. I think the real task for me and other chefs today is to discover food ingredients that are easily Considering sedum’s refreshing taste and frequent usage in salad, we came up with a dish found around us, unique to our food culture and has been shared by many generations throughout offering raw snapper salad seasoned with consommé topped with head of sedum. The our history, and to develop new recipes using them. tomato consommé was the perfect alternative for the spicy red pepper sauce typically used in raw fish salad. It does not have the spicy taste of red pepper but eloquently brings out the nuance of Accordingly, we are supposed to concentrate on namul, one of our food culture which is easily the spicy red pepper sauce traditionally used in raw fish salad. This element, by itself, offers a accessible and is often regarded not special because it is too familiar to us. It might be impossible rich savory taste and simultaneously serves the role of bringing out the flavor of other ingredients to grasp unknown aspects of namul and create innovative dishes that go beyond conventional and especially the delicate taste of sedum. Overall, it played a pivotal role in expressing the too much emphasis on soft texture and delicate flavor can become a bit boring, we also added a distinctive SOIGNÉ-style raw fish salad. glaze sauce made of sunchoke peel so that you can enjoy bursts of sunchoke flavor at will.

The presentation of sedum representing the grass might seem extreme. However, because sedum Fifth dish – Bang-pung namul (Wild Parsnip Leaf) with scallop is a naturally mild-flavor plant unlike its appearance that may seem otherwise, we thought the real . flavor of sedum can be properly tasted only when they are consumed generously. For this reason, Bang-pung is a plant that grows in grassland that has dry sandy soil. It is described in Dongui- we went for a plating style that is overall flat to give the visual impression of not being excessive bogam that ‘bangpung has warm properties and is sweet, spicy and innoxious. It treats 36 and yet offer a generous amount of sedum. kinds of palsy and helps the five viscera and capillary pulses work properly. It also treats dizziness, gout, red eyes and tears, and pain or numbness in all the joints in the body.’ Such plating resulted in the presentation that is reminiscent of a lawn. Just as one encounters a stretched-out field or grassplot before entered a mountain, this dish is intended to serve as an The charm of Bangpung namul comes from the bitter taste that is followed by fragrant flowery entrance to the foods that will follow or an introductory scene where winter withdraws, and the scent. It is available for a relative long period and is typically seasoned with gochu-jang (red chili air of spring starts to blow. paste) and doen-jang (fermented soybean paste).

Third dish – Asparagus with Daejeo tamato What I labored most in developing a dish using bangpung namul is to find a way to bring out its unique flavor while breaking away from the typical boiling. In order to avoid the common recipe Asparagus is a new dish following after previous dish ‘Dureup namul’. Asparagus is probably while highlighting the taste and flavor of bangpung, I came up with the method of baking the one of juiciest vegetable and it’s taste is unbeatable in peak season. pasted bangpung like a chip. This method may not be as effective as the boiling recipe which offers the best taste and flavor of bangpung. However, it is an attractive dish that delivers the There are tons of recipe to cook asparagus and somehow the raw format is the best in my bitter taste of bangpung with a crunchy mouthfeel in the flow of the course that can otherwise opinion. However, we tried to highlight the savory part rather than the fresh green taste. become monotonous. The crunchy bangpung chips are served on softly grilled scallops for wonderful mixture of texture. Moreover, the bitter taste of bangpung and the sweet savory taste Asparagus was taken apart into 2 pieces. Upper half was sous-vided with Dalae and the other of scallops interact to create a perfect balance of flavor. part was juiced after grilling. Grilled asparagus juice was then mixed with Dalae oil and sour . cream to make savory green sauce that gives a strong savory backbone to the half soft and half The sauce serves as is a link connecting the namul with the scallop. The sauce is based on Manila crunchy asparagus head. clam broth added with pickled leaves to give interesting twists and turns to the flavor of the dish and slightly offset the heavy body taste from the chips. As a sidekick of asparagus, we used a savory tomato called ‘Daejeo’ cooked confit. The tomato is an impressive ingredient on its own. When combined with asparagus they complement each Sixth dish – Perilla leaf Rotolo other and improve the flavors of each other.. 2012 Klinec Gardelin "Orange Wine", Medana (Pinot Sivi)

Fourth dish – Sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke) with Ginkgo nuts Perilla leaf is a kind of namul that is most commonly available in Korea. What is interestingly 2009 Frelih Rose, Sentrupert (Zametna Crnina) unique about this namul is that it has been developed as a food only in Korea among the world. According to Dongui-bogam, ‘perilla leaves are effective in controlling the energy from th Estimated to have become naturalized in Korea after the 17 century, sunchoke grows naturally going up and soothing cough and perilla leaves made into paste is good for treating areas in fields and the wild. It is known to be good for people with diabetes because it is rich in insulin. with insect bites and swollen scrotum.’ It is not a native namul of Korea, but we included it in this episode because it grows naturally in the wild. Many chefs will agree, but perilla leaves are one of the trickiest ingredients in fine dining cuisine. Food ingredients that can be matched with perilla leaves are limited and specific because Sunchoke has been introduced in a lot of our menus so far in many different ways including they have such a strong unique flavor. A lot of times, the deep tone and strong impact of its taste low-temperature cooking, deep-frying and raw. This time, we wanted to create a sunchoke dish and fragrance override the taste and flavor of main ingredients. that offers a new mouthfeel. We made it into a soft puree so that you can appreciate the soft and warm texture and the enjoy the nutty sweetness gently spreading in the mouth as if taking a rest Against the prejudice, we have created a dish that brings out the unique fragrance of perilla laves. from stimulating taste buds successively with greens. For this task, we incorporated a recipe that presents one of the most visually distinctive pastas, Rotolo. In the perilla leaf Rotolo made of more than 30 layers of thin pasta reminiscent of annual To emphasize the soft texture of the sunchoke puree, we added two contrasting textures; one rings of the trees, perilla leaf is inserted between each layer. The pasta looks like coiled-up with ginkgo nuts offering excellent chewy texture and aromatic flavor and another with onion fettuccine, but it can be enjoyed either like noodles or like ravioli depending on how you would cooked lightly to maintain its soft crunch. Both ingredients turned out to be wonderful match for like to eat it. the sunchoke in terms of mouthfeel and aroma supporting the flavor of the sunchoke puree. Since As for the sauce that matches the wild aroma from the perilla leaves, we prepared a sauce made broth. However, it was not easy to select side ingredients that would complement the broth when from porcini mushrooms to deliver a similar nuance. In terms of both visual and flavor effect, the added. Overall, we needed ingredients that would complement the broth without diluting the rich porcini sauce with the flavor of the soil matches well with the pasta that looks like annual flavor of Mugwort. After several tests, we decided that if the side ingredients disturb the flavor of rings of the tree, offering bursts of wild aroma of perilla leaves. the broth, it would be better to reduce the number of side ingredients and make the broth stand out. Seventh dish – Butterbur with lobster 2007 BATIC Rebula "Orange Wine", Vipava (Rebula) In effect, eating this dish might feel like drinking tea. Mugwort, a most delicately scented Namul, is brewed with mushroom and kelp and served with blanched -chu () so that you

may think back to the prior dishes and look forward to the next dishes to be served. Butterbur is an herbaceous perennial plant in the family Asteraceae. The plant is generally gathered from mountainsides and riverbanks rather than being cultivated in fields. It is Ninth dish– Hae-bangpung (wild parsnip leaf) and dough-wrapped Iberico pork introduced in Dongui-bogam as a plant that is innoxious, has warm properties, suppresses 2014 Chateau de la Vieille Chapelle Bouchales Merlots, Bordeaux (Bouchales, Merlots) coughing and strengthens health.’

Butterbur leaf and stem are excellent namul that offers the white flower scent unique to plants. Hae-bangpung is a type of namul that has a distinct taste and aroma different from that of Some people might find this namul be bitter. However, the bitter taste of butterbur is quite unique regular bangpung. In general, its aroma is stronger than that of bangpung namul and it has a in that, the more one chews the more its flavor changes into a rich savory taste blending with the delicate sweetness and features a dense fibrous texture. Hae-bangpung namul can be cooked in a strong fiber texture. variety of ways, but we have found that it tasted the best when barbecued with torch. This is because its unique aroma and texture are still intact even after the roasting. The savory taste of butterbur was realized in a dish accompanied with lobster and rice. The lobster is grilled with torch and served with savory lobster bisque sauce. As for the plating, the The meat that matches well with hae-bangpung is baked Iberico pork wrapped in dough, which blanched butterbur is served beneath the lobster, giving the impression that the butterbur serves as left a strong impression to our guests in the previous episode. Our method of baking Iberico pork the ssam (vegetable wrap) for the lobster. The finishing touch to this dish is the rice added to the wrapped in dough is 90% identical to the method introduced in Gunhak-hoedeung, an ancient dish. We thought it is the best item that highlights the essence of namul and makes a finish to the cookbook from the late dynasty. It is one of the most interesting and historically savory flavor from the lobster sauce. Rice can be enjoyed in the form of bibimbab in which all significant recipes we have found so far and is also the best way to bring out the taste of Iberico ingredients are mixed together: it can also be enjoyed so as to finish up the remaining sauce. pork. The combination of the soft savory taste wrapping the meat and the flavor of hae-bangpung Whichever way is chosen when having this dish, it will be hard to miss the bitter taste of that grows with each bite was very impressive. butterbur change into a rich savory taste. The namul we chose to assist the roasted hae-bangpung and baked dough-wrapped Iberico is We also thought it would be appropriate to prepare side dishes since this menu comes with rice. deodeok (family of ginseng). Deodeok was finely shredded and seasoned almost in the same way The butterbur stem is similar to vines and is likewise used as namul. Once the other namul are commonly prepared to bring out its chewy texture and subdued sweetness mixed overall bitter taste is removed, the butterbur stem offers a crunchy taste similar to along with a hint of bitterness. with delicate flower scent. In order to take advantage of these taste and texture, the stems were made into pickle by using white wine . Tenth dish – Korean angelica, basil, mugwort Cristina (Medium Oloroso), Jerez (Palomino, Pedro Ximenez) Eighth dish – Namul-tea (Mugwort, Ssam-chu) The namul used in the dessert are Korean angelica leaves and mugwort. As a matter of fact, it is Mugwort and Ssam-chu are heralds of spring. They are popular namul famous for their unique not easy to make a dessert that accentuates the characteristics of namul. This is because namul sweetness and fragrant scent. Developing the dish, we focused on how to have our guests enjoy have a bitter taste that hardly harmonize with dessert. That is why we decided to look for a the flavor of them without chewing on it. combination in which namul play a supporting role instead of the main role.

In addition to the goal of effective delivery of flavor, another goal set for the menu was to offer a Both Korean angelica and mugwort are namul that have a heavy flavor and leaves a long lasting palette cleanser, a component in a French course meal that is served before the main dish. In unique bitter after taste. When compared to music, these they can be liken to the bass guitar. That general, a cleanser dish has a strong refreshing taste which completely removes the food residue is why we made a dessert using basil and apple that offers high tones. In other words, we came up and flavor of prior dishes from the mouth. On the other hand, we created a dish that offers with a combination that demonstrates how angelica and mugwort can be used as supporting delicate taste and aroma as a way to accentuate Korean sentiments and evoke a mood of brief ingredients to complement the main ingredient while still expressing its own uniqueness. contemplation from the fast-paced flow of a course meal. In short, this dish was intended as a physical and emotional breather from the rush of flavors. The mugwort mousse was first filled with sesame and then coated with mugwort ganache to create a dish that is reminiscent of (halfmoon-shaped rice cake) in overall taste. To To accentuate the delicacy of shepherd’s purse, we brewed the flavor of shepherd’s purse into a broaden the spectrum of taste in this refreshing dessert made of apple and lime, we placed angelica on top of the apple, combining contrasting tone of flavor, and used mugwort mousse, which is reminiscent of songpyeon. The heavy flavor of mugwort leaves an aftertaste along with the angelica, while the basil sorbet gives a fresh finish, evoking the feeling of walking through a wild mountainside to reach a fresh grassland.

Wrapping up

Personally, this episode was one of the most difficult episodes. We started out with the idea of making food using namul, with every trial, realized that namul are far more delicate and tricky than we had thought they would be to grasp their unique characteristics and bring them out in appealing dishes in new ways.

Namul that are bound to have a lot of fiber release a lot of their distinctive properties when the fibers are chewed thoroughly. The direction of food that are regarded ideal in fine dining and the act of long and rigorous chewing of fibers may seem hardly compatible. For this reason, we tried to save the characteristics of namul as much as possible but did not insist on casting namul in the lead roles. Casting them as the stars sometimes, and as supporting roles at other times, we thought that we could fully convey their attractiveness if their presence were vividly expressed. . For some people, our new presentation of namul that breaks away from the conventional concept of side dishes may seem unfamiliar. However, we believe that the new possibilities for namul should be presented through new recipes in any way possible, whether it is in the form of side dishes or ingredients for other food. Familiar food ingredients are given new possibilities through new attempts, and it is through the accumulation of these efforts that unique food culture in Korea will become known to other countries.

The food presented today is one direction SOIGNÉ proposes for a new food . We hope that this episode will encourage many people to take greater interest in the food ingredients commonly found in our surroundings.

Thank you.