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| Chef Jaume Biarnes speaks during a promotion event for food product firm Sempio's Yondu cooking essence in Jung-gu, Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of Sempio |
By Nam Hyun-woo
A renowned Spanish chef praised Korea's soybean fermented sauces, saying they could offer new possibilities in Western vegetable culinary arts and attract more people to a vegetable-based diet.
"Much research shows eating vegetables is not a trend, it is a must, but there is a limit in Western ways of cooking vegetables," chef Jaume Biarnes said during a cooking essence promotion event in Seoul, Tuesday.
"We are trying to demonstrate how, thanks to Korean soybean fermentation, we can make vegetables delicious and pleasant."
Biarnes has 20 years of experience as a chef, highlighted by five years as a chef at El Bulli, a world-renowned Michelin 3-star restaurant in Spain which is now closed.
He was also a chef at Alicia Foundation, a Spain-based research center for technological advances in cuisine. He is now the director of Yondu Culinary Studio in New York, which promotes Korean food firm Sempio's Yondu cooking essence.
According to Biarnes, Sempio first approached him in 2012 when the company asked the research center to develop ways to use Korea's fermented soybean sauces for culinary arts across the world.
During the project, he found ganjang, Korean soy sauce, and Sempio's Yondu soy sauce product were "the most versatile" fermented soybean products applicable to cuisines of other countries, helping him to develop more recipes for vegetable dishes.
"When I go to Korean restaurants, I was more excited about the side dishes, not bulgogi or barbecues they offer as main dish," he said. "The really important thing in the Korean diet is vegetables."
He cited 2013 OECD data, which show Koreans have the highest daily vegetable consumption in the world, and 70 percent of items on Koreans' plates for a meal are vegetables, stressing that Koreans consume that many vegetables because they find those dishes delicious because of soybean fermented sauces.
"When we say something is a good food, it has to have three aspects of healthiness, sustainability and deliciousness," Biarnes said. "Even though a food is healthy and sustainable, if it doesn't taste good, we're not going to eat it. So that's why Korean soybean fermentation is that important."
During the event, he showcased a number of recipes using Yondu, including a 3-minute vegetable soup, hummus, mushroom wellington and baba ganoush, a Middle-Eastern dish made of mashed eggplant, sesame seeds, olive oil and various seasonings.
"After research, I found that Yondu could be the easiest way to add the deep taste of Korean food into global cuisines without compromising their original taste," he said, adding Yondu is a global interpretation of Korea's fermented soybean sauces and can help more people get used to the tastes of Korea.
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