Doenjang, Ganjang and the Written Record of Fermentation

Fermented soybean seasonings are among the oldest foundations of the Korean table, and the peninsula's written record of them runs through the household and agricultural manuals of the Joseon period. Those texts were produced in the court at Seoul and in the yangban households of the provinces, and they give the cook of today a line of authority reaching back several centuries.

Doenjang (된장), the fermented soybean paste, and ganjang (간장), the soy sauce drawn from the same fermentation, begin with meju, the dried and moulded blocks of cooked soybean (Glycine max). The blocks are hung and left to ferment, then submerged in brine in an earthenware onggi jar. After a period of weeks the liquid is drawn off as ganjang and the solids are worked into doenjang. Much of the Korean kitchen, the jjigae, the namul seasoned with paste, the ssamjang and the base of gochujang, depends on this division of the jar. The written record is uneven but substantial. The Sanga Yorok, a household manual of the Joseon period, sets down the keeping of sauces and pastes within the domestic calendar. The Eumsik Dimibang, written in 1670 by Lady Jang Gye-hyang, is a cookbook composed in Hangul by a woman, and it belongs to the same household tradition in which the sauce jar was tended as a matter of course. The Jeungbo Sallim Gyeongje, a compendium of rural and household economy, deals with the making of meju, brine and paste as matters of husbandry. The Gyuhap Chongseo of Lady Bingheogak Yi, of 1809, belongs to the same tradition of women's household writing, and it records how paste and sauce are put up and tended through the year. The Siui Jeonseo, an anonymous cookbook of the late Joseon period, is read beside these works. Together they show that the fermentation of soybeans rested on seasonal timing, the care of the jar and the judgement of the maker, rather than on fixed recipe alone. Knowledge of this kind has since been given formal protection. In 2013 UNESCO inscribed kimjang, the making and sharing of kimchi, on its list of intangible cultural heritage, and the inscription places the communal preserving of the winter table in the same frame as the sauce jar. Both rest on household labour, seasonal rhythm and knowledge handed from one household to the next. Among modern authors, Joanne Lee Molinaro, in The Korean Vegan Cookbook, uses doenjang and ganjang as the ground of savoury depth in a plant-based kitchen. Cooking without meat or fish, she lets the jar supply the savour of the dish, as it has long done in temple cooking.

Doenjang gives a deep, salty and savoury note with a faint sweetness and a lasting earthy character, while ganjang is thinner, saltier and more clearly sharp. Aged ganjang grows darker and rounder, and a young paste is brighter and coarser. At the table the two season soup, vegetables and dipping pastes, so that the dish takes its savour from the jar rather than from added meat or fish.