Letting sun, wind and water do work

Large round potteries stand under the sun and the wind as soybean lumps in salt and water in them undergo fermentation and maturing into soybean paste and soy sauce at Jookjangyeon in Jookjangmyeon, North Gyeongsang Province. / Courtesy of Jookjangyeon

Making paste old-fashioned way in new world

By Kim Ji-soo

JOOKJANGMYEON, North Gyeongsang Province — It's verdant hill after hill to get to this village located about an hour-and-a-half from Singyeongju Station on the KTX Line. That is to say, after a two-and-half-hour train ride from Seoul.

But once you get there, the sun blazes in your eyes and there is only the sound of the warm strong wind riffling through the trees in the valley. It's a sound of quietness hard to find these days.

"This is the end. I guess you can go 100 meters more in but that's about it," said Kim Jin-kyu, a deputy section chief in charge of production at Jookjangyeon.

Taking the name of the village "Jookjang" and the word "yeon" or nature, Jookjangyeon makes soybean paste, chili pepper paste and soy sauce in the traditional way.

A total of 16 iron pots are in use at Jookjangyeon to boil and steam the beans to make fermented soybean paste.

Buried deep toward the end of the valley, the village and its residents enjoy enduring sun, strong winds and clear aquifer water to grow beans, chili pepper and apples.

Now they are using that to produce vintage soybean paste and chili paste sold in premium stores throughout Korea and supplied to a Michelin-star Korean restaurant Hooni Kim's Danji in New York, and Saikabo in Tokyo.

Every year around late November when farmers have time Jookjangyeon works with village residents to make soybean paste that is found in Korean stews, marinated side dishes and used as dips for vegetables.

Oak firewood is used to boil the beans.

Using Korean soybeans sourced from the area, the employees and residents wash the beans, boil them for 8 hours before forming them into "meju" or blocks.The meju are dried/fermented before being stored in "hangari" or large ceramic potteries with the finest salt and local aquifer water before turning them into the soybean paste and soy sauce.

By the time May arrives, much of the process is completed. So the fermented soybean blocks are stored in round hangari that almost come up to the waist.

"This is when we wait for nature to do the work," Kim Jin-kyu said.

Boiled soybeans formed into lumps are hung up to dry.

Quietly, some 2,500 potteries of paste stand solidly aligned under the glaring sun as the wind blows from both the East and West.

The potteries, which were created by Intangible Cultural Property Lee Mu-nam, let the ingredients inside "breathe" and ferment naturally.

Several small buildings stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the paste manufacturer's lot that has been introducing the concept of "vintage" and "premium" paste.

It's a strategy possible as Koreans, keen for the health benefits of good food and eager to embrace tradition, have taken to purchasing paste made the old-fashioned way.

Dried and fermented soybean paste lumps are stored in large potteries
with salt and water.

Priced at 25,000 won per 1 kilogram, the soybean paste is about six to seven times the price of mass-produced ones sold in large markets. But the company has no difficulty in selling its products. They are sold at leading department stores such as Hyundai and Lotte. The paste and the sauce are in demand as gifts from corporations during traditional Korean holidays such as Chuseok. The maker also supplies to Market O and other Korean restaurants.

It even sells a pottery of soybean paste to individuals, who are willing to reserve it for 2.2 million won and have their name tags attached to it.

After the company was founded in 2008 and it began producing in 2009, the seeds were planted back in 1999. It's tale of unlikely partners — a supplier for POSCO and the village of Jookjangmyeon — creating a greater sum of their parts.

The fermented soybean paste is separated from the soy sauce.

In the late 1990s, Youngil International was a supplier for POSCO. So under the program in 1999, Youngil chose this town, providing repair services for farming equipment for the residents. In return, the residents gave soybean paste and chili paste to the company. The pastes won word-of-mouth approval, and the company dedicated to making the paste was launched.

"When we started out, we didn't think our pastes would be traveling that far. But we know now that we were making fine products," said Kim Ok-ja, 59, a resident-turned-employee.

The quiet confidence comes from knowing that they follow the age-old method of producing the paste without additives such as rice or flour. The first taste of the soybean paste was salty but soon rounded out with a clean finishing flavor.

"Using the best beans, salt and water is what makes for the clean finishing taste," Kim Ok-ja said.

Aside from the three main ingredients locally supplied, the makers use oak wood to boil the beans in the large iron pots their ancestors used. The thermal infrared rays that are produced as the oak wood burns allow for best temperature for the beans. The boiled beans are them lumped into "meju," which are first dried for 45-50 days at temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees Celsius and 30 to 40 percent humidity.

"The most important part is the drying/fermenting stage, we put a lot of emphasis on maintaining the right temperature and humidity," said Kim Ok-ja. It's at this stage where the healthy microorganisms including bacillus subtillis are created.

Then the meju is fermented between layers of straw mats at 30 degrees with the humidity controlled — by the opening and closing of windows — at 50 to 60 percent. The fermentation requires 10 to 15 days. Afterwards, the fermented meju is stored in hangari with salt and water in the ratio of one-to-one-to-three-to-four. Then after 50 days, the meju and soy sauce are separated and the meju is pulverized to create soybean paste. The paste is then stored in the hangari to ferment for two years.

Much of the paste-making process is done manually at Jookjangyeon but they do use three machines — a bean washer, former and pulverizer.

The chili paste is made with chili pepper, grain syrup and water.

Jookjangyeon's first soybean paste is the 2011 vintage made in 2009. The company now sells vintage 2012 paste.

With annual production standing at an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 kilograms of soybean paste; 10,000 kilograms of soy sauce and 13,000 kilograms of chili paste, the company recorded 2 billion won in sales in 2012. It's a figure that has yet to reach a break-even point for Jookjangyeon, but it is forging ahead with future plans of opening a soybean paste school in the village as well as launching a "ssamjang" or mixed soybean paste with chef Kim.