The Osinchae Prohibition in Temple Cooking (사찰음식 오신채 금지)

The prohibition belongs to the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and is kept in the temples of Korean Son (선종) Buddhism, whose cooking is called sacheol eumsik (사찰음식). Buddhism reached the Korean peninsula in the fourth century CE, and the temple table has since been shaped by the monastic rule that the five pungent vegetables are not eaten.

Korean Buddhist temple cuisine (사찰음식, sacheol eumsik) is cooked without meat and without the five pungent vegetables known as osinchae (오신채). In Korean practice these are garlic (Allium sativum), green onion or spring onion (Allium fistulosum), wild chive or wild rock garlic (달래, Allium monanthum), chive (부추, Allium tuberosum) and a fifth plant, the pungent resin-bearing asafoetida, known as heunggeo (흥거), which was never a vegetable of the Korean kitchen. In many Korean accounts the fifth is given instead as a large onion or leek, and the list is therefore not fixed in every lineage. The reasoning given in Buddhist teaching is that these plants heat the blood when cooked and stir desire, and that when eaten raw they agitate the mind and obstruct meditation. The rule is therefore one of discipline for the monastic community, and it is held on those grounds and not on grounds of flavour. Without alliums, the cook must build savour by other means. The temple kitchen relies on doenjang (된장), on ganjang (간장), the soup soy used to season broths and namul, and on stocks made from dried mushrooms and kelp. Perilla (Perilla frutescens) leaf and seed, ginger, toasted sesame and sesame oil give fragrance and depth, and pickled and fermented vegetables supply sharpness. Gochugaru, from the Korean chilli (Capsicum annuum), is used in some temples and avoided in others. The meal is built on rice, a doenjang soup, pickles and several namul, the seasoned vegetable dishes. Seasonality governs the choice of greens, roots, wild shoots and mushrooms, and each dish is seasoned simply so that the vegetable itself is tasted.

The temple meal is arranged around rice, pickles, a doenjang soup and several namul dishes, seasoned with soy, sesame, perilla and ginger. With neither meat nor alliums, the flavours are clean and quiet, and the table depends on the fermented seasonings and on the freshness of the vegetables.