Simply conjuring up the images of Bibimbap, a signature Korean dish served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables), sesame oil, and gochujang (fermented red chili paste), makes our mouth water. Freshly made Kimchi, a traditional fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings (e.g. gochujang, ginger, salt, salted fish, etc.) is another endorphin-boosting food that tantalizes us. With ever-growing interests in food worldwide, who would refuse a chance to relish mouthwatering foods The intake of delicious food indeed makes us forget about our concerns, albeit briefly, and lifts our mood by influencing the production of endorphins.
Gangwon-do, which is scheduled to play host to the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, is also home to Jeonggangwon, the name of the hanok building for the Korea Traditional Food Culture Experience Center (a tourist farm located in PyeongChang-gun, Gangwon-do). Jeonggangwon, a one hour and 35 minutes’ drive from Seoul, is also a place where the Korean TV drama The Grand Chef (Sikgaek) was filmed. Sporting “hanok” (a term to describe Korean traditional houses) lodging facilities, a food museum, sports facilities and eco-friendly farms, Jeonggangwon serves as a one-stop tourist attraction, where tourists can have hands-on experiences with traditional Korean dishes (e.g. Bibimbap, kimchi, songpyeon (a small rice cake), jeon (pancake-like dishes), etc.).
“It is said that 50% of life is made up of taking pleasure in eating food. However, contemporary people, often pressed for time, find it difficult to make time for savoring tasty food in a relaxed manner. Their hectic life forces them to grab a quick bite during breaks. Thus, I opened Jeonggangwon to provide people with a place where eating comes as a laid-back, highly-amusing experience,” said Kil-ja Kim, CEO of Jeonggangwon.
“Jeonggangwon offers people opportunities to mix various kinds of Korean ingredients and take a delight in tasting them. Foreign tourists from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. pay a visit to Jeonggangwon on a daily basis. This place has indeed become one of PyeongChang’s must-visit tourist attractions,” CEO Kim added.
Jeonggangwon has well-maintained vegetable gardens nearby, where a variety of eco-friendly organic produce is grown. Visitors to Jeonggangwon will make their own traditional Korean dishes, mostly using organic vegetables (e.g. cabbages, lettuces, leeks, pumpkins, peppers, etc.) grown at these gardens.
Jeonggangwon has been running nearly 20 food experience programs, such as Bibimbap Making, Red Paper Paste Making and Kimchi Making. Through these hands-on experience programs, participants can learn how to make traditional Korean cuisine, as well as take home some of what they made as a souvenir. The number of visitors to Jeonggangwon, including employees attending workshops or seminars, family-unit visitors, college students and foreign tourists, has been on the rise annually.
The following is an excerpt from Korea IT Times’ interview with CEO Kim.
Q: What was your motive for opening the Korea Traditional Food Culture Experience Center (KTFCE)
A: “Korea’s 5,000-year-old, rich history cultivated its excellent, time-honored cultural heritages. One of the nation’s great heritages is its food culture. Unfortunately, foreign tourists visiting South Korea, albeit packed with a plethora of restaurants, rarely have a chance to savour wellbeing-oriented foods developed by our ancestors. Most foreign tourists ended up choosing eateries offering undifferentiated, not-so-traditional food selections, so I decided to become a promoter of Korea’s traditional food,” answered CEO Kim.
The menu prepared by the KTFCE features a combination of wellbeing, good taste and nutrition. CEO Kim has been keen on putting Jeonggangwon at the forefront of promoting traditional Korean food worldwide by furnishing traditional Korean cuisine, which cannot be tasted anywhere else.
Q: Could you tell us about your experience programs
A: “Jeonggangwon’s experience programs revolve around “fermentation.” Fermentation, the key secret of traditional Korean foods that retain our ancestors’ several thousand year old wisdom, had been heavily exploited by our ancestors for the deepening of ingredient savors.
Let me first introduce our Bibimbap Making Program. Bibimbap, which literally means “mixed rice,” allegedly traces back to the Agricultural Age, when the entire Korean family sat down together, mixed various ingredients and seasonings with rice in a wooden bowl and shared the mixed rice with family members. Thus, Bibimbap harbors the spirit of sharing with loved ones. The Bibimbap Making Program allows participants to mix rice with 18 different organic vegetables in a large wooden bowl, made from paulownia trees. The organic vegetables are delivered directly from Jeonggangwon’s vegetable gardens. Then, Bibimbap is completed when the rice mixed with freshly-picked organic vegetables is spiced with fermented red chili paste (gochujang) to the maker’s liking.
Another traditional Korean food that cannot go unmentioned is kimchi, one of the world’s five healthiest foods. Traditionally speaking, Kimchi, which has been added to the UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, was made during the autumn harvest season, symbolizing a good harvest. Kimchi varies according to region since different kinds of cabbages, red pepper paste and salted fish are used. The Kimchi Making Program offers participants opportunities to plaster each layer of salted cabbages with Jeonggangwon’s eight-year-old salt, sun-dried red pepper powder and various kinds of seasonings. Self-made Kimchi, made of locally grown ingredients, will probably remind the program participants of the homemade, good-tasting kimchi their mothers made when they were young.
Other hands-on experience programs, like Red Pepper Paste (Gochujang) Making, Tofu Making, Injeolmi (glutinous rice cake) Making, Buckwheat Jeon Making, etc., are also popular. Those who take part in the Gochujang Making Program will make their own Gochujang, using fermented soybeans (made from Gangwon-do’s freshly harvested soybeans), Korean red pepper powder made from sun-dried peppers, Jeonggangwon’s eight-year-old salt and glutinous rice flour.
Meanwhile, the Tofu Making Program gives participants a rare chance to make tofu in a strictly traditional fashion. They first grind cleanly washed soybeans, which were also grown in Gangwon-do, with a stone hand mill and then boil the ground soybeans to obtain soy milk. The process of coagulating the protein and oil (emulsion) suspended in the boiled soy milk ensues with the aid of coagulants, such as salts and acids. Here, Tofu is made by coagulating soy milk and pressing the resulting curds. Furthermore, Injeolmi (glutinous rice cake), Buckwheat Jeon, Songpyeon, Ginseng Yogurt, Potato Jeon and Mackerel Ssamjang Making Programs are also in great demand.”
Q: Jeonggangwon seems to have lots of facilities.
A: “That’s true. Jeonggangwon, an aesthetically beautiful hanok building standing on an area of 10,000 pyeong, is capable of accommodating nearly 400 people at once during group events, such as company workshops, seminars and group outings. On top of that, surrounded by a slew of leisure and vacation facilities, including Bokwang Phoenix Park Ski Resort, the Alpensia Resort (a ski resort), Yongpyong Ski Resort, Heungjeong Valley, Herbnara (a tourist farm famous for its charming fairytale-like town), rafting facilities and auto camping sites, Jeonggangwon has under its belt optimum conditions for becoming a must-visit tourist attraction in the region.
Jeonggangwon consists of the Hanok Facility, the Food Museum, the Main Building, the Annex Building, the Country House, the New Building, gardens, Water Park, campfire sites, a grass-floored open space, etc. The tiled-roofed Hanok Facility, the center of Jeonggangwon, serves as an ideal place for visitors to experience hanok. It is made up of health-conscious, traditional building materials such as ondol (underfloor heating) floors and tiles (kiwa).
The Food Museum, which puts on display various kinds of traditional cooking utensils that mirror our ancestors’ wisdom, is comprised of the Culinary Lab, Seokbinggo (Korea’s ancient cave-like, underground ice houses) and the Hanbok (the traditional Korean clothing) Experience Room. The courtyard in front of the Main Building is decked with a cluster of approximately 500 jangdokdae (large clay jars storing sauces and condiments) and the vegetable gardens nearby are filled with pumpkins, peppers, cabbages and buckwheat. The two-story Annex Building works as a cozy place where a wall furnace, large-screen TVs, karaoke facilities and pool tables are available. The Country House next to the Annex features traditional fireplaces, flat stones (used for floor heating), offering visitors a rare view of blocks of fermented soybeans hanging from the ceiling.
The New Building houses a large auditorium, saunas and ondol lodging facilities. What’s more, a large-scale, grass-floored open space (big enough to host an event for 400 people), an artificial waterfall, a traditional pond and an animal farm all prod visitors into taking a long nice walk for fresh air.”
It seems fair to say that Jeonggangwon is not so much simply one of S. Korea’s tourist attractions as the nation’s vibrant, cultural heritage site, which helps tradition-seeking foreign tourists have a taste of Korea’s unique flavors and traditional touches. Personally, my brief stay at Jeonggangwon, as a Korea IT Times journalist, gave me flashbacks to my cherished childhood years spent in the countryside. All told, Jeonggangwon seems to be the perfect place for those who need some time for meditation and introspection, food lovers looking for great eateries and tradition-loving tourists who want to dabble in traditional Korean culture.
More information on the KTFCE is available on www.ktfce.com/english or you can dial 033-333-1011~3.
