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Yang Yong-jin, expert who preserved Jeju’s culinary heritage, dies at 60
Yang Yong-jin / Courtesy of Yang’s surviving family
By Park Ung
Yang Yong-jin, a researcher of traditional Jeju cuisine, died Monday. He was 60.
Yang’s surviving family told The Korea Times that he died of cancer at Jeju National University Hospital.
Born in Jeju in 1965, Yang was the son of Kim Ji-soon, who was recognized in 2010 as the island’s first master of traditional Jeju cuisine. He graduated from Ohyeon High School and went on to study architecture at Jeju College of Technology.
After working in performance planning, Yang opened a baking school in 1996. A 2000 trip to Italy introduced him to the slow food movement, which emphasizes traditional food culture and local ingredients. Inspired, he later founded the Institute for Preservation of Jeju's Traditional Local Food.
Yang learned to cook traditional Jeju dishes such as bracken and beef soup (gosari yukgaejang), gulfweed and pork soup (momguk), pork cartilage soup (jeopjjak-bbone-guk) and glutinous rice cakes (omegitteok) from his mother.
Jeju’s cuisine, shaped by the island’s isolation and limited arable land, differs from that of the mainland. It primarily uses grains, seafood, vegetables, seaweed, chicken and pork as its main ingredients. The dishes are simple in both preparation and composition, highlighting the natural flavors of the ingredients without relying on complex seasoning or elaborate techniques.
Starting in the mid-1990s, Yang helped his mother document Jeju’s traditional cuisine. In 2011, he published a catalog featuring more than 350 traditional dishes and later co-authored several books promoting the island’s culinary heritage.
Until 2022, he ran a local restaurant while heading a culinary academy. He also led the Jeju chapter of Slow Food International, a movement founded in Italy in 1986 that now operates in more than 160 countries, and gained public recognition through TV appearances and cooking classes.
“My father devoted himself to getting Jeju’s traditional cuisine recognized as a UNESCO cultural heritage item. (Though it never came to fruition,) he kept working toward that goal until the very end,” his son Yang Jae-sun told The Korea Times.
“Last year, five traditional Jeju dishes were added to the Ark of Taste, a global project by Slow Food International to preserve endangered food cultures. My father played a key role in that effort,” Yang added. “He was deeply committed to gaining international recognition for Jeju’s culinary heritage.”