Chef Cho Hee-sook finds the balance between tradition and modernity in hansik

Food & Travel

Published: 09 Apr. 2024, 08:00

Chef Cho Hee-sook finds the balance between tradition and modernity in hansik

Chef Cho Hee-suk at Seoul's cultural complex, Korea House, last month [JOONGANG PHOTO]

[INTERVIEW]

Chef Cho Hee-sook, 64, is now a familiar name to foodies worldwide. She ranked in Forbes’ 50 Over 50: Asia in 2022 and was named Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants’ Best Female Chef and Michelin Guide Seoul’s Mentor Chef in 2020.

She is widely known as the “godmother of hansik [Korean traditional cuisine],” and there’s a reason for that than just her exquisite dishes. For over 40 years, she’s been working toward preserving Korea’s traditional cuisine and culinary methods.

She stumbled into the job by chance some 40 years ago when she was a schoolteacher looking to do something different. An acquaintance from university suggested working as a hansik cook at Sejong Hotel in central Seoul.

The work, Cho said, wasn’t anything new to her. She was the eldest daughter of her family and had spent a lot of time in the kitchen helping her mother. Rather, she said, it was “work that I could do better, and wanted to do better.”

She has since worked in five-star kitchens, including those of the Novotel Ambassador Seoul Gangnam, Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas and The Shilla Seoul. She also acted as the head chef of the Korean Embassy in the United States.

Cho subsequently became a freelance chef and opened a culinary research and development (R&D) center, Hansik Gongbang, in 2015. She wanted to “recreate dishes according to my thoughts and desires.” Cho also did food consulting for companies and restaurants at the same time.

A prolific and respected chef in Korea, Cho could have taken an easier path, possibly giving lectures at universities. But she always returned to the kitchen.

“I always thought that the kitchen was the place where I could do what I really liked and use my skill set to the fullest,” she said.
Cho in 2019 opened a restaurant as well, saying “it was a chef’s final assignment.”

She took over Hansikgonggan, a restaurant in Wonseo-dong, central Seoul. It quickly received a Michelin star, and in 2020, ranked No. 43 on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. The space has been closed, however, since September 2021.

Instead of incorporating Korean flavors into Western-based cooking, Cho champions reinterpreting traditional food to suit the modern palate.

She has extensively studied a variety of Korean cuisines, including the food of ancient Korean royals and yangban (elites), as well as regional dishes.

For this, up-and-coming overseas chefs interested in hansik have called her the “chefs’ chef” and go to her for advice on Korean cooking.

Cho is a strong believer of the importance of rice in Korean cuisine. She contributed to a book titled “Be Like Rice” by Lee Hyeeon-ju, Jun Dae-kyung and Kang Jing-ju, which received an award in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2020’s rice category. Cho introduced in the book banchan recipes that pair well with different types of rice.

She also recently cooked rice during a session of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. Called the 50 Best Signature Session, Cho, along with three other female chefs from Singapore and Thailand, collaborated on a special dinner to celebrate the global gastro awards opening in Seoul for the first time. The chefs each showcased separate plates throughout the course meal but collaborated on the main bapsang dish.

Below is the edited excerpt of Cho’s interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Cho Hee-suk talks to the JoongAng Ilbo in March at the Korea House in central Seoul [JOONGANG PHOTO]

Q. I imagine restaurant kitchen work was more difficult back then than nowadays. What was your experience as a chef when you were starting your career?

A. I worked all day. I left the house the moment I got up in the morning and returned when it was dark. The public perception of cooking as a profession wasn’t as good as today, so many suffered mentally as well. Some even hid the fact that they were chefs.

Was it more difficult for you as a working mom?

As the eldest daughter-in-law of seven, I had to cook on all the national traditional holidays and the family ancestors' anniversaries. I also only had 30 days of maternity and parental leave, so I remember working right up until I was ready to give birth. I don’t know if it was good luck or my stubbornness, but both of my children were born on my off-duty days. Honestly, I wasn’t very comfortable when I was on leave as well. I couldn’t relax next to my mother-in-law who would say, “I rested for four days after birth and I was back in the kitchen.”

Nakji, or mini octopus, porridge served at Cho Hee suk's now-closed Hansikgonggan in central Seoul [JOONGANG PHOTO]

Seaweed buggak, or fried seaweed, at Cho Hee suk's now-closed Hansikgonggan in central Seoul [JOONGANG PHOTO] [JOONGANG PHOTO]

There are still many people who miss Hansikgonggan. Why did you decide to close shop?

The pandemic made it hard to continue operations but the larger reason [for closing] was because I felt that fighting with numbers was not for me. Having to work on food and run a restaurant was overwhelming. But it did give me a chance to learn the taste preferences of epicureans in and out of Korea. So, I don’t regret the experience.

You were dubbed the “bugak [fried seaweed snack] magician” after showcasing a bugak dish at Hansikgonggan. How did you come up with the idea?

I showcased four to five different bugak and bugak tangsu (fried food coated in sweet-and-sour sauce) and saw positive responses from both locals and foreigners. It was a case where personal achievement and my mission as a professional chef met. I was always a little sad about the fact that at the same hotel, a small plate of Japanese sashimi would cost 200,000 won ($148) while a table full of hansik dishes taking an entire kitchen staff to prepare would cost much less. So, I took it as my mission to find a way to cook hansik in an economically viable manner while preserving the cuisine’s originality. Bugak was something that Koreans had eaten for a long time but was largely forgotten. Crispiness is something that people all over the world like. So, I was sure that if I could give this unique Korean fried food a modern spin, people around the world would like it. The initial idea was to try to look at familiar things in a new light and this eventually gave way to new ways of cooking. Today, it is a motif that modern-day hansik should pursue.

Bansang, otherwise known as a traditional Korean table-setting, with rice, soup and side dishes, served at Cho Hee suk's now-closed Hansikgonggan in central Seoul [JOONGANG PHOTO]

The globalization of hansik has long been the country’s mission. What are your opinions on this?

There is a sense that we gave in to Western food culture to meet a “global standard.” One case in point is that hansik is sometimes brought out in courses, whereas the traditional Korean way is to bring out all the food out at once, laid out on a table. This is called bapsang. I am most saddened by the fact that bap (rice) has disappeared from the hansik meal. Hansik’s unique characteristic is that it is comprised of banchan (side dishes) and bap, but many modern hansik restaurants serve banchan as the “main dish” without rice. I think it is time that we no longer alter what is ours to the Western ways. Foreigners already know Korean words like bap and banchan.

So, you believe that the future of hansik, in a global sense, is a meal comprised of rice and banchan?

Hansik is based on fermentation. Using fermented sauces like ganjang (Korean soy sauce), doenjang (Korean soy bean paste) and gochujang create all kinds of different flavors including sweetness, saltiness, lightness and sonmat (hand taste unique to whoever is cooking the food). Right now, however, these fermented sauces have just become the face of hansik but aren’t able to fully function because rice doesn’t complement them. Without rice, dishes made with sauces have to have a much milder flavor. While it is important to bring out the natural flavors of foods, the harmonization of different sauces, grounded in fermentation, is really important in Korean cuisine. As long as this foundation exists, whatever new spin on the cuisine works.

What was it like making bapsang with chefs from different countries?

We were all Asian and agreed on the importance of rice. I suggested that the main course be a bansang (full table-setting meal, usually comprised of rice, soup and banchan), and I took on cooking the rice. After mixing Vietnamese rice with one that was locally grown, I got back positive responses saying that the lighter Vietnamese rice went well with the more sticky, glutinous Korean rice and that it was a successful display of Asian harmony.

You said that we need a campaign to bring back bapsang not only in restaurants but also in our meals at home. Why?

Because people are getting more and more used to eating out, banchan is disappearing in homes as well. At this rate, we might forget how to make banchan altogether. Even just putting one or two banchan that the family likes on the table and eating together as a family has value. I also see it as the older generation’s responsibility to teach kids the taste of delicious rice instead of just letting them eat chicken and hamburgers.

For hansik to evolve, how would the consumers’ attitude need to change?

Labor costs and food prices are on the rise, to the point that cooking up a simple dish of namul (seasoned greens) is difficult. Yet, some consumers leave bad reviews at restaurants for not refilling their banchan or leave leftover banchan. And those leftovers get thrown away and leave a negative impact on the environment. I believe that a society that knows to respect and appreciate the hardworking hands of artisans will grow the local restaurant market and have the power to protect our bapsang culture.

BY SEO JEONG-MIN. LEE JIAN [kjdculture@joongang.co.kr]