“Bon Appetit, Your Majesty,” a Korean drama that follows a chef who time-travels to the past, has taken the world by storm. The drama not only focuses on the romance between the chef and the king she cooks for, but also introduces traditional Korean food that people from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), especially the royals, ate back in the day. But how similar are the dishes shown in the drama to what people ate hundreds of years ago? To find out, Howdy Korea consulted a master in Korean Royal Cuisine.
Lim Seung-jeong, designated practitioner of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage: Royal Court Cuisine of the Joseon Dynasty, watched Episode 4 of the drama with Joel Jay Lane, the host of Howdy Korea. In the episode, the chef participates in a competition where she has to make a dish that embodies the spirit of filial piety out of soybean paste and tofu, for the royals.
Each contestant made a different dish: eomandu (fish dumpling), yeonpotang (tofu soup) and spinach soybean paste soup. However, according to Lim, soybean paste was not the most-used ingredient in the royal cuisine of the Joseon Dynasty. She also pointed out how yeonpotang would have looked different back in the day.
So what did the original yeonpotang look like? After watching the episode together, the master introduced step-by-step how yeonpotang was most likely made hundreds of years ago, guiding the viewers through the royal court cuisine of the Joseon Dynasty.
Watch the full episodes, “Korean Royal Cuisine Master & Joel reacts to Bon Appetit, Your Majesty | Episode 4” and “Korean Royal Cuisine Chef & Joel cooks food from Bon Appetit, Your Majesty,” on Howdy Korea’s YouTube channel.