When it comes to preparing the temple food that has earned her praise from world-renowned chefs, Buddhist nun Jeong Kwan plays a long game.
Her vegan dishes are composed of vegetables she grows in gardens at the Chunjinam Hermitage at the temple Baegyangsa in Baekyangsa, South Korea, where she has lived and cooked for her fellow nuns and monks for a half-century. Kwan employs slow techniques like sun drying and fermentation to enhance her ingredients’ flavors. She brews soy sauce, a foundational seasoning in her cuisine, in a process that can take decades.
Kwan, who was the subject of a 2017 episode of the Netflix documentary series “Chef’s Table,” recently came to Yale to share her culinary craft and philosophy with the local community and the staff of Yale Hospitality. Her visit was part of Global Table, a cross-campus collaboration between the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, Yale Hospitality, and the Yale Schwarzman Center that explores how cuisine can be used to connect people across borders, promote cultural awareness, appreciate diverse perspectives, and create a shared sense of responsibility for the planet.
Kwan’s residency culminated with a dinner at Yale Commons in which more 350 members of the campus and local community gathered to enjoy dishes she’d prepared with Yale Hospitality staff — and to listen to the celebrated chef discuss her experiences and approach to cuisine. For that conversation Kwan was joined by Hwansoo Kim, a professor of Korean Buddhism and culture in the Department of Religious Studies in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Hwansoo Kim, a professor of Korean Buddhism and culture, engaged Kwan, center, in conversation about her life story and approach to cooking.
“The fact that I’m here probably means that in a past life I was a student at Yale University,” Kwan said, speaking through a translator, when asked how she was feeling after working so hard to prepare the meal. “I feel very familiar and all of you are currently in my heart.”
“That is a very Zen-like answer,” Kim quipped.
Kwan’s visit marked the third iteration of the Global Table program, following residencies by Chef Ebru Baybara Demir of Turkey and Chef Selassie Atadika of Ghana.
From the way she selected and prepped her vegetables, to her modest approach to cooking, every ingredient she used was chosen with deep respect and intention.
During Kwan’s weeklong residency, which ran from Oct. 16 to Oct. 22, she trained chefs from Yale Hospitality to prepare a selection of her recipes. A menu inspired by her teachings is now available at the Rooted station in Commons.
Working with Kwan provided staff members with a welcome reminder that cooking is not merely about technical skills, it is also a spiritual practice, said James Benson, director of culinary excellence at Yale Hospitality.
“From the way she selected and prepped her vegetables, to her modest approach to cooking, every ingredient she used was chosen with deep respect and intention, resonating with the six senses and reflecting her philosophy of harmony and mindfulness,” Benson said. “The energy and attention to detail that she and her team brought with them provided inspiration to our team and can be experienced through the newly launched menu creations at Rooted.”
Kwan’s visit also included a meditation session with Yale College students. She also recorded a podcast with Hyaeweol Choi, professor of Korean Studies, Gender History, and Religious Studies at the University of Iowa, who was on campus to deliver a lecture on the cultural phenomenon of Korean temple food.
An unforgettable dinner
More than 350 members of the Yale and local community attended the dinner, which was free and featured dishes Kwan prepared with Yale Hospitality staff.
The closing dinner with Kwan represented “the very best” of what the Yale Schwarzman Center — a campus hub for arts, culture, and wellness where Commons is located — can do with its campus partners to encourage belonging and build community, said Rachel Fine, the center’s executive director.
“Students, faculty, staff, and New Haven community members relished the opportunity to meet and learn from the venerable Jeong Kwan, experience her artistry in full, and engage in mindful dining and meditation,” Fine said.
During her residency, Kwan trained Yale Hospitality staff to prepare a selection of her recipes. A menu inspired by her cuisine is now available at the Rooted station in Commons.
At the dinner event, Kim asked Kwan to share the story behind her signature dish, braised shitake mushrooms. In response, she shared a pivotal personal moment.
The fifth of seven children, Kwan’s parents operated a noodle shop. When she was 17, after her mother’s death, Kwan left her family to become a nun at the temple Baegyangsa, which is nestled on a mountainside 169 miles south of Seoul. As part of their responsibilities at the temple, the nuns and monks must learn to cook. Their vegan diet excludes animal products along with garlic, onion, scallions, leeks, and chives.
Shitake mushrooms are a prized source of protein, said Kwan, who has no formal culinary training and has never worked as a restaurant chef.
“We wash and cook so many shitake mushrooms per day that my hands still smell of those mushrooms,” Kwan said. “So ironically, the braised shitake mushrooms have become my signature dish, but I do not eat them anymore. I am sick of them.”
But the braised mushrooms played a key role in an important episode of Kwan’s life: the last time she saw her father. After joining the temple, Kwan did not contact her family for seven years because she was afraid that they would find her and bring her home. Once confident that she would never leave the temple, she contacted her father, who visited her there for two weeks, she explained.
Through these shitake mushrooms I hope to communicate that sense of happiness and peace in your hearts and allow us to let go of resentment and fear.
After a week without eating meat or fish, Kwan’s father was concerned that she could not survive on such a diet and asked her to return home with him. In response, she brought a basket of shitake mushrooms to a river on the grounds and boiled them in a clay pot for three hours, she said.
“It is the same recipe as the braised shitake mushrooms you will have tonight,” said Kwan, whose cooking has influenced famous chefs Eric Ripert of Le Bernadin in New York and René Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen.
Her father enjoyed the mushrooms, which eased his concerns about her welfare. He bowed to Kwan before her fellow nuns and wished her well on becoming a successful nun, and then soon returned home. A week later, Kwan learned that he had died.
“Through these braised shitake mushrooms… he was able to let go of his resentment and be in peace,” she said. “Now that I think about it, this one food was able to touch his heart and resolve his loneliness… Through these shitake mushrooms I hope to communicate that sense of happiness and peace in your hearts and allow us to let go of resentment and fear.”
This [dish] combines vegetables from mountains and fields as well as plants from the ocean…. When we mix these ingredients together and eat it, it has become attainment in one taste.
Kwan then offered the eager diners a tutorial on assembling their meal: Chunjinam Temple bibimbap. Small bowls at the center of each table held the ingredients, some sourced locally and others that Kwan brought with her from the temple. In the latter camp, there were sun-dried zucchini and bracken, a fern that grows wildly in the mountains surrounding the temple (which can be poisonous when consumed fresh). There also was sun-dried aster, a daisy-like flowering plant. All were boiled in cooking oils and fried for serving. Sun-dried persimmons lent the dish a spicy flavor. Fried ground seaweed added a salty seawater taste.
These ingredients were complemented with locally sourced oyster mushrooms, grilled tofu, and spinach, which was seasoned with sesame oil, sesame powder, and homemade soy sauce that was fermented for eight years.
“This [dish] combines vegetables from mountains and fields as well as plants from the ocean, and we season them together,” she said. “When we mix these ingredients together and eat it, it has become attainment in one taste.”
Kwan demonstrated how to assemble Chunjinam Temple bibimbap.
Kwan instructed the guests, seated at tables of seven, to put equal amounts of each ingredient over the rice in their bowls. She cautioned them to take only as much as they could eat. The results were sublime. Diners devoured their meals, remarking on the subtle, delicious flavors. As they ate, she reminded them that she expected bowls to be emptied, as there was just enough food on each table for each guest.
After a dessert of sweet rice puffs and sun-dried figs, Kwan led the gathering in a recitation of five verses traditionally recited during meals at Zen monasteries, beginning with:
This meal is
the gift of all living things,
a matter of astute worldly grace,
created by the earth, rain, sun, and wind.
Chef Kwan concluded with two minutes of silent meditation.
After the meal, Kwan led the diners in a two-minute meditation.
