Belgian cook Ae Jin Huys promotes culinary treasures of Korea with new recipe book

Food & Travel

Published: 19 Jun. 2023, 13:04 Updated: 20 Jun. 2023, 23:12

Belgian cook Ae Jin Huys promotes culinary treasures of Korea with new recipe book

Ae Jin Huys, a Belgian professional cook, business owner and author of "Taste Korea" [PARK SANG-MOON]

Seoul flips through trends like magazine pages at a hair salon, and its food world is no exception to it.

The usual repast of rice, guk (soup) and banchan (side dish) is increasingly becoming obsolete, with rice consumption slashed by half, fewer people cooking and market size for food delivery apps mushrooming, to list a few.

But Ae Jin Huys, a Belgian cook, food business owner and author of two cookbooks, has come to foster a deep appreciation for this traditional Korean meal and is shedding light on it in Europe.

Her newest cookbook "Taste Korea" is a bona fide guide to home-cooked food in Korea, including recipes for simple banchan like seasoned spinach, courgette pancake and steamed shishito peppers, main dishes like stewed mackerel, as well as more complex jang (a fermented sauce from soybeans that works as a basic seasoning for Korean cuisine).

Cold wheat noodles with cucumber whose receipe is outlined in Ae Jin Huys' latest cookbook "Taste Korea" [SUSTAINWORKS - KIM ZINHO]

Recreating these dishes is easier said than done.

Years of research, annual visits to Korea and meet-ups with dozens of local chefs and cooks are how Huys manages to capture the essence of Korea's authentic homemade meal.

In a sense, "Taste Korea" is also a travelogue, recording not only recipes but also different people's food philosophies that she encountered on her trips.

The English translation of the Dutch cookbook came out earlier this year and is now available in Korea.

English translations of Ae Jin Huys' cookbooks "Taste Korea," left, and "Kimchi" (2019). [PARK SANG-MOON]

Huys is a full-time CEO of Mokja!, a Korean food business that does catering, workshops and pop-ups. Her first cookbook "Kimchi" (2019), was the first Korean cookbook written in Dutch and received a silver medal in the German Cookbook Prize's Asian category amid rave reviews from platforms like the major Flemish newspaper Nieuwsblad.

Born in Korea, Huys was adopted by her family now in Belgium, around the age of six. She lived most of her early and young adult life disengaged from her birth country. But she loved cooking from a young age, and food was how she was able to eventually reconnect with Korea.

"I used to follow my Belgian mother around in the kitchen, helping her cook and even recreating some of the dishes that I remembered from my short-lived childhood in Korea," Huys told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at Yongsan District, central Seoul, on June 5. "The kitchen was the place where I felt the most at ease. Even now, when I am not comfortable with people, I tend to stick around in the kitchen."

In her early 20s, Huys met a new friend from Korea, Go Young-joo, a chocolatier who runs Cacaoboom, a dessert cafe in central Seoul, who was temporarily staying in Belgium with her family and was regularly invited over to their house.

"There, I recognized dishes from my childhood that I didn't even know I knew about," she said. "It was an unannounced flashback and trigger to my childhood. I think it was the first step that drew me back to Korea."

Ae Jin Huys, left, learns the process of filtering the liquid after the fermentation process of meju (dried fermented soybeans) with water and salt from Koh Eun-jeong, Huys' first "teacher," and mentor to many other Korean homemakers and renowned chefs. [YOLANTA C. SIU]

On her yearly excursions to Korea, Huys doesn't just seek out prestigious chefs with Michelin stars but also housewives, often older women.

"What appealed to me about traditional Korean food was its philosophies," Huys said. "So I like to meet with people who have a vision of food — the reasons behind why they cook the way they cook and eat what they eat. I think the reason I got to meet so many older people is that they are the generation that still does have a vision and actually cooks every day."

Huys added, "I channel these visions of traditional chefs and cooks in my cookbook for foreign people and maybe even the younger Korean generation. I hope to pass on their knowledge and that people get inspired by them as I do."

In the process, she even discovered motherly warmth through Moon Sung-hee, a cook and a natural vegan advocate who appears in her book.

"Moon Sung-hee calls me her eldest daughter, and for me, she feels like a warm and caring mother and friend," Huys said. "We found we have many similarities of how difficulties made us strong and independent, as well as our passion for food which is our medium to connect to people and nature, and on a personal note, to express ourselves."

She continued, "I found this to be a good way to connect back with my childhood and my roots because it was [through] my passion. It happened unannounced and naturally, by bonding with people with whom I felt connected … but nowadays, it fulfills my life to reconnect [with Korea]. I feel humbled and thankful for the warmth and generosity of people who are willing to share their knowledge."

Portrait of Ae Jin Huys, right, and Moon Sung-hee [SUSTAINWORKS - KIM ZINHO]

During her more recent trips, Huys has been mainly studying jang, the central theme of "Taste Korea."

"With this recipe book, I want to share with others the wonder that carries me on my quest to rediscover Korean cuisine. And where else to start than with its essence, the well-known jang that so typifies Korean cooking," Huys writes in the introduction to "Taste Korea."

The book contains some 70 recipes that incorporate jang along with detailed footnotes about their ingredients, suggestions for alternative ingredients for those that are difficult to source in Europe and uniquely Korean terms related to taste and food, such as sonmat, which Huys describes as "hand taste" and siweonhanmaet as the "sixth sense."

Now back in Belgium, Huys said she will be focusing on her food business Mokja! which she established in 2013.

She began the business with a Korean barbeque pop-up. Setting up Korea's iconic red and blue plastic chairs and tables with built-in grills, Huys brought an authentic K-barbeque experience to Belgians. Nowadays, Mokja! focuses more on Korean food catering and workshops. She also promotes Belgian cuisine in Korea. In recent years, she worked with the Flanders' Agricultural Marketing Board to promote Belgian fries instead of "French" fries in Korea.

"I started a business in collaboration with Marie Boes, a Belgian who lives in Korea who runs Namu Marketing," she said. "We offer food and beverage consultancy services and PR, marketing and event planning services for European clients breaking into the Korean market or Korean companies breaking into the Belgian market.

"I'm finding my new role here [in Seoul] interesting as it requires a certain cultural language, and I am somewhere in between Korea and Belgium," she said.

Ae Jin Huys collects edible herbs and flowers in Belgium to recreate Korean namul (seasoned greens). [GILLES DESPLANQUE]

Huys has no plans to open her own restaurant, contrary to what many expect of her.

"For me, the basis of my business is on learning about Korean food - that is my passion," she said. "I don't think that I will be running a restaurant because I'm focused on spreading ideas like food awareness and philosophies rather than operating a restaurant. This is why I hold workshops instead, where I pass on my knowledge to people about food awareness and Korean food philosophies."

Instead, life for Huys was about awareness and maintaining an internal balance through work that is "nearby who I am as a person."

"I feel the purpose of life is to understand who you are as a person, and for me, I feel most energized by learning and passing on my knowledge," she said.