The Temple Tradition

The temple tradition of Korea grew within the Buddhist monasteries of the peninsula, which stood in the mountains and kept a table of their own through the long centuries of Goryeo and Joseon. Its history rests on the Buddhist rule against taking life, and on the settled fact that under Joseon, with Confucian officialdom in the ascendant, Buddhism was pushed away from the cities and into the hills, where the monastery kitchen continued its own discipline.

The temple table is a cooking without meat, fish or shellfish, and in its strict form without the pungent alliums that Buddhist teaching counsels against: garlic, spring onion, chives and their kin. Much of what Korean cooking draws from animal sources, the briny depth of anchovy stock, the salt of fermented fish in kimchi, has therefore to be found elsewhere. The monastery kitchen found it in dried kelp, dried mushrooms, soybeans, and above all in the jang, the fermented soy foundations of the cuisine. Doenjang, ganjang and gochujang carry salt, savour and body, and the cook who understands them understands why a dish without flesh can still taste complete. The materials come from the mountain and the garden. Wild greens, known as namul, are gathered in spring and blanched, dressed or dried for the months when nothing grows. Roots such as bellflower (Platycodon grandiflorus) and fernbrake, the Korean radish (Raphanus sativus), perilla (Perilla frutescens) leaves and seed, sesame, pine nuts and tofu make up the larder. Perilla oil and sesame oil give richness where animal fat would otherwise sit. Kimchi in the monastery is made without fish sauce or salted shrimp, relying on salt, chilli, ginger, and often a thickened paste of rice or other grain to feed fermentation, so that the napa cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis) ferments on its own sweetness. The discipline of the temple table is one of restraint and use of the whole ingredient. Vegetables are cut, dried, pickled or fermented so that nothing is wasted and each season is stored against the next. The banchan principle, the many small dishes set around rice, appears here in its plainest form: a bowl of rice, a soup, a ferment, and a few seasoned vegetables, each distinct in texture and flavour. Seasoning is applied with a light hand, so that the character of the individual vegetable remains clear. In Joanne Lee Molinaro — The Korean Vegan Cookbook, the plant-based Korean kitchen is presented as a continuation of dishes the cuisine already holds, and the author builds her recipes around the same fermented soy, vegetables and aromatics. The book shows how much of Korean home cooking may be made without animal products by replacing the stock and the fish-derived seasonings with mushroom, kelp and the jang. That approach follows the logic the monasteries worked out, and it is why the temple tradition remains a working reference for any cook who wants Korean flavour without meat.

The temple table tastes of fermented soy, toasted sesame and perilla oil, the bitterness of wild greens and the sweetness of root vegetables, with chilli used in measure. Without meat stock, the savoury weight comes from doenjang, ganjang, mushrooms and kelp, and the meal is balanced by the contrast of a clean soup, a sharp ferment and a softly seasoned namul beside plain rice.