The taste of 'minari'

By Kim Ji-soo

As the day of the 93rd Academy Awards Ceremony (April 26, 9 a.m. KST) approaches, there is heightened awareness of whether film “Minari” by the Korean American director, Lee Isaac Chung, will grab awards based on six nominations, including one for veteran Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung.

Youn was nominated in the category of Best Supporting Actress, based on her heart-warming portrayal of the character of the grandmother in the film.

In the movie, the plant known as “minari” in Korean, is planted by the grandmother, Soonja, as she adjusts to life in Arkansas, the United States. As many already know, the Korean American director has said that the movie is loosely based on his own family's story.

In the film Youn shares a number of scenes with the character of her grandson at a creek bed she identifies as ideal for growing minari. The plant is one of the things through which they bond with one another and even sing together about it. She tells him that while he has been living in America, he hasn't had the chance to taste the vegetable. So she attempts to explain:

“But it's the best food. It grows like weeds, so anyone can have it: a rich person, a poor person. Anyone can pick it and be healthy. You can put it in kimchi, or in soup. When you are sick, it is medicine. Minari is truly wonderful. Wonderful.”

The film doesn't, however, show us any dishes containing the vegetable. In Korean cuisine, minari is often used in side dishes, as marinated “banchan” or grilled alongside with pork, or boiled with fish stews, including blowfish stew. Juiced and packaged minari extracts are considered good supplements to those with a weak liver. It can additionally perhaps stand alone in “jeon,” a popular savory pancake.

These days, one of the most popular versions of minari used in Korean cooking is as a vegetable cooked and eaten alongside Korean “samgyeopsal,” or pork belly. One new samgyeopsal restaurant in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul, shows that popular dishes featuring minari include: minari ramyeon, minari jeon, and minari bibimbap, or rice mixed with various vegetables, including minari. With minari sourced from a friend's farm in Cheongdo, North Gyeongsang Province, the restaurateur said that their minari is fresh enough to eat raw, especially the stems, while the upper part, with the leaves, should be grilled together with pork.

Also, he said that by presenting minari as the main vegetable on their menu, it allows customers to eat it with chopsticks, freeing them from having to use their hands to make “ssam,” or wraps with lettuce, as Koreans usually do with leafy green vegetables.

Tasting like a mix of cilantro, mint, and parsley, minari is also used in Korean temple cuisine.

“The minari at the temple grows in the waters flowing down from the mountain, so it is clean. So we eat it fresh, place it on a bowl of rice, amounting to perhaps more than the rice, then spicing it up with fermented hot pepper sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil and sesame seeds,” said the Venerable Seon-jae, a leading figure in temple cuisine and former chief of the Korean Food Promotion Institute. “It's fresh minari bibimbap, and only possible with clean-grown minari,” she said.

“You can also eat it in minari pancakes, putting in about the same amounts of minari and potatoes, with a small amount of flour,” said the Ven. Seon-jae.

As Buddha's birthday approaches on May 19, the Ven. Seon-jae said that, as a special treat, they plan to prepare “minari ganghoe.” This treat is an oyster mushroom, topped with a jujube, wrapped with ribbon-like minari.

Asked whether minari, with its slightly pungent, herbal flavor, can readily be accepted as tasty, the Venerable Seon-jae answered, “Since there is an abundance of minari here, and I eat it a lot, it has become delicious to me. Don't dismiss its distinctive flavor. ”

Kim Ji-soo is the managing editor of The Korea Times' print edition.