Chef forages ingredients for cocktails

Expert chef Dustin Wessa forages for fresh ingredients in the wilderness of Korea. / Courtesy of Dustin Wessa

By Jon Dunbar

When Dustin Wessa goes up a Korean mountain, he brings his appetite. The North American chef, who moved here more than 13 years ago, forages on the slopes for some of his ingredients.

“Getting lost in the woods was a big part of my childhood and onwards,” Wessa told The Korea Times. “Foraging for fungi in particular had this real backwoods draw to it. With every trip outside of our super metropolis toward the hills, the bounty of wild greens at the marketplaces was of particular interest.”

Wessa developed a reputation for his foraged ingredients as owner chef of the Gyeongnidan-area restaurant Dandy Pink, which he ran for five years.

Next Wednesday he will bring his knowhow to a master class for Sool Bar Week, an event promoting bartending at various venues in Seoul.

Students of the class will learn foraging techniques and how to identify what is safe and use them in cocktails as bitters, salts, syrups and infusions.

“I started foraging here with reservation in that overconfidence can put you in hospital,” Wessa cautioned.

Wessa credits his expertise to the elderly mountain foragers he has encountered.

“It was the accessibility to information from the elder generation that made it possible to expand the contents of my basket,” he said. “Hillside, you can ask what’s the harvest, how it’s best preserved and prepared.

“The elder generation, say 65 and older, having grown up foraging, is an invaluable wealth of information and we have lots to talk about.”

He finds the mountain foragers friendly and accepting, while younger Koreans react in surprise to what he does, but interest is growing.

“I’ve had people in explosions of laughter after sharing a flower that tastes of roasted seaweed. It’s wonderful,” he said. “I’ve also had a barrage of questions due to lack of belief that this or that mushroom is edible and been shouted at for ‘killing’ myself."

His class will focus on what is in season now, including a type of cress native to the mountains here, anise hyssop, a wild peppercorn that hits with a citrus bite and numbs the tongue, some sweet and savory roots in the bellflower family, green pine nuts, chestnuts and reshi mushrooms.

“With foraging there’s not a choice — you’re a slave to the seasons,” Wessa said.

After his master class, he will be serving his signature cocktails at three cocktail dinners.

On Sept. 14, 15 and 16 he will be at HBC’s La Marmite to team with chef Kevin Attal for a three-course meal paired with three cocktails made with foraged ingredients unique to Korea.

The class costs 50,000 won. The dinners are 85,000 won. Visit soolbarweek.com for more or to RSVP.