Once, when chef Junghyun Park was young, his cousin brought a fresh wax honeycomb to his house in Seoul.
Park’s mother treasured it, since in South Korea fresh honey was coveted for its health properties, and she only gave it out when someone got sick. Mixed in a cup of hot water with a little ginger, the honey made an excellent tea. “We drank it almost like it was medicine,” Park said.
Perhaps no Korean dish embodies the value of honey more than the ancient dessert yakgwa, a deep-fried honey cookie soaked in syrup. Yakgwa (“yak” means medicine and “gwa” means sweet) is more than a vessel for the coveted sweetness. It connects generations and tells the story of Korea’s reverence for tradition and its optimism for the future.
Enjoyed since the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392), these delicacies have seen a resurgence in popularity partly through videos on YouTube and TikTok, and in Korean dramas like the Netflix series “Alchemy of Souls.” South Korea’s “Generation MZ” (a hybrid of millennials and members of Gen Z) are the drivers of this new fixation on the past. They have revitalized not only the culinary custom of the yakgwa, but also its market.
In South Korea, boutique startups like Golden Piece and Jangin Hangwa focus on selling yakgwa for modern tastes, with flavors ranging from the original honey ginger to lavender, chocolate and cookies and cream.
Koreans have long embraced yakgwa with enthusiasm. The kings of Korea’s Goryeo dynasty even banned the making and consumption of yakgwa because the popularity of its main ingredients—wheat, honey, and sesame oil—created shortages and skyrocketed prices.
Traditionally, yakgwa was served only on special occasions, such as holidays, birthdays, and the four rites of passage in life, known as gwan-hon-sang-je: coming of age (gwan), marriage (hon), death ( sang) and the veneration of the dead (je), a custom that many families still practice. Today, Koreans enjoy yakgwa outside of those rituals.
They take multiple shapes and sizes, although the ribbed flower shape may be the most common. In “The Korean Cookbook,” by Park and researcher and chef Jungyoon Choi, there is a recipe for a crispier, flakier variation in the shape of rectangles. This style is emblematic of a rich food culture that Park called a “hidden gem of Korean cuisine,” originating in Kaesong, North Korea.
“Of course, we can’t go there anymore,” he said. But that doesn’t mean there’s no connection. “We share the culture, we share the language and we also share the food.”
By: Eric Kim
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6908875, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-09-26 21:50:09
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