For travellers who want to understand Korean food at its root, and who have found that most of what is offered abroad stops at the surface. It suits anyone eating plant based by choice, and anyone drawn to longevity cooking, to fermentation, and to the idea that a cuisine can be built around clarity of mind.
It is also, in our experience, the journey that quietly converts the sceptic in the group, because the food is extraordinary long before anyone explains why.
Sachal eumsik is the food cooked in Korean Buddhist monasteries, and it has been cooked more or less this way for over a thousand years. It is entirely plant based, but it was never a diet. It was built to keep the mind clear enough to sit still for a very long time.
There is no meat and no fish. There is also no garlic, no onion, no spring onion and no chive, the five pungent vegetables held to stir appetite and agitation. Take all of that away and what remains has to carry the meal alone: mountain vegetables picked that week, and soy sauce, doenjang and gochujang fermented in earthenware jars in the temple courtyard, some of them older than the cook.
A spoonful of a twenty year old soy sauce carries more depth than a modern kitchen can build in a day. Most people find they eat less than usual and feel better for longer.
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