▲ 문화ㆍ예술 탐험의 교과서로 불리는 136년의 역사를 자랑하는 세계적인 매체인 '내셔널 지오그래픽'이 최근 'Why Jeonju is the best place to eat in South Korea(전주가 한국의 최고 미식도시인 이유)'라는 제하의 기사를 통해 전주를 대한민국 최고의 미식도시로 평가했다. (내셔널 지오그래픽 기사) / 사진제공 = 전주시청   © 김가영 기자

 

 

문화ㆍ예술 탐험의 교과서로 불리는 136년의 역사를 자랑하는 세계적인 매체인 '내셔널 지오그래픽'이 전주를 대한민국 최고의 미식도시로 극찬했다.

 

30일 전주시에 따르면 내셔널 지오그래픽은 최근 'Why Jeonju is the best place to eat in South Korea(전주가 한국의 최고 미식도시인 이유)'라는 제하의 기사를 통해 ▲ 남부시장의 콩나물국밥 ▲ 비빔밥 ▲ 막걸리 ▲ 전통차 등 전주의 대표 음식뿐만 아니라 예향 전주의 문화ㆍ역사적 정체성을 소개했다.

 

이 기사는 지난 20일 내셔널 지오그래픽 온라인판을 통해 전 세계에 소개됐다.

 

특히 전주비빔밥이 '조선 왕조의 역사와 전주의 문화적 유산이 녹아있는 요리'로 전주는 '전통을 혁신하고자 하는 열정이 넘치는 요리사들이 있는 도시'이자 '한국인들이 찾는 미식도시'로 각각 평가했다.

 

전주시 이상숙 국제협력담당관은 "연간 1,500만 명이 방문하는 전주는 해외에서 한 번 방문하면 잊지 못하는 도시"라며 "수많은 글로벌 미디어사와 세계적인 인사들이 전주의 문화와 음식ㆍ예술 그리고 전주 사람들의 매력에 빠져 전주의 홍보대사를 자처하기도 한다"고 말했다.

 

그러면서 "콩나물국밥ㆍ비빔밥ㆍ막걸리 등 한식과 전주관찰사 밥상 등 미식 콘텐츠ㆍ문화ㆍ역사적 자원을 활용, 전주라는 도시브랜드를 지속적으로 세계에 알리기 위해 글로벌브랜딩 등 최선의 노력을 다하겠다"고 덧붙였다.

 

☞ 내셔널 지오그래픽 기사 원문

 

Why Jeonju is the best place to eat in South Korea

 

Jeonju, in north Jeolla province, is so famed for its food that it’s designated a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, serving subtle twists on classic dishes from bibimbap to rice wine. If you were to get directions to Hyundai-ok, they might read something like this. Head down the central alley of Nambu Market, past the shops selling cheap clothes, wicker baskets and Tupperware; turn right at the cafe advertising both hot and cold coffee; then go left at the junction where two ladies chop onions, sitting right outside a restaurant serving blood sausage. Or you could just follow the sound of hammering.

 

When I arrive at the restaurant, two cooks stand at a metal counter enthusiastically pounding mounds of garlic with meat tenderisers, adding the pulp along with sliced leeks and chilli to steaming pans behind them. It’s barely 9am but already the main service is over — there are just a few customers inside as I take my place at the counter alongside guide Dan Grey, hard to miss in his bright red T-shirt. “Squid or no squid?” he asks. “That’s the only choice here.” Opting for ‘no squid’, I’m swiftly presented with a small metal pot containing a lightly steamed egg; a platter of kimchi, shrimp paste, seaweed and pickled turnip; and a large black ceramic bowl of broth, with beansprouts and rice bobbing beneath the surface.

 

Taking my cue from the two women happily slurping at a nearby table, I tuck in, first pouring the egg into the broth. It’s so rich in flavour it borders on meaty, and spicy enough that my nose starts to run after a few spoonfuls. “You can see why we call it haejang-guk — hangover soup,” says Dan. “The heat takes away the headache and the steam is like a sauna for the face.”Open between 6am and 2am in Jeonju’s main market, Hyundai-ok has been reviving the locals with beansprout soup since 1979. It’s a formula that needs no tweaking, as the queues that form at 7am every weekend attest. The stalls in, and spilling out of, the market also show a solid commitment to tradition: there are ones devoted to pak choi, pig’s head soup and steamed snails, and workshops producing great slabs of pressed tofu and vats of sesame oil.This is a city, though, that has no fear of tinkering with favourite recipes. Jeonju sits in the country’s rice bowl, surrounded by waterlogged paddy fields and enormous polytunnels, and has a long-held reputation for the quality of its produce.

 

Dan, a Korean-American food expert and guide for the tour company Intrepid Travel, is on a mission to show me how the city likes to use that produce to shake things up a bit. “It’s the city that Koreans go to for food,” he tells me, “but it’s always been a bit rebellious, a bit individual. Whenever there’s an election, they always seem to vote a different way to the rest of country.”A short walk from the main market, Gajok Hoegwan is a case in point. Like Hyundai-ok, the restaurant has a single dish down to a fine art: bibimbap. Essentially, it’s rice mixed with vegetables and has been eaten in some form in Korea for centuries — a way to use leftovers to create a cheap meal. Gajok Hoegwan, however, has elevated it to new levels. In its first-floor dining room, I find a table by windows covered with traditional paper screens, joining small groups of friends chatting over the clattering and clinking coming from the kitchen.A tray of 12 side dishes appears first: garlic stems with mushrooms, dried turnip, pickled green plums, candied sweet potatoes and anchovies with gochujang (red chilli paste) among them. The main event arrives in a softly gleaming brass bowl: an artistic ensemble of rice, carrots, cucumber, spinach, fiddlehead greens, gochujang and sliced raw beef.

 

The rice has been steamed in oxtail broth, the beef marinated with sesame, ginger and garlic, the gochujang made to a secret recipe. It’s certainly like no leftovers I’ve ever cobbled together. Delicately mixed with metal chopsticks, it’s a comforting, fiery blend where each perfectly balanced ingredient takes equal footing.Opened in 1979 by chef Kim Nyun-im, Gajok Hoegwan is now run by her daughter Kim Yang-mi, a cheerful woman in jeans and Crocs who comes over to chat as I eat.

 

The intricacy of the dish is explained when she tells me her mother was inspired by the unique place her city holds in the country’s history books. Jeonju was the hometown of the royal Joseon dynasty, who ruled the wider region between 1392 and 1910.

 

Open between 6am and 2am in Jeonju’s main market, Hyundai-ok has been reviving the locals with beansprout soup since 1979. It’s a formula that needs no tweaking, as the queues that form at 7am every weekend attest.

 

The stalls in, and spilling out of, the market also show a solid commitment to tradition: there are ones devoted to pak choi, pig’s head soup and steamed snails, and workshops producing great slabs of pressed tofu and vats of sesame oil.

 

This is a city, though, that has no fear of tinkering with favourite recipes. Jeonju sits in the country’s rice bowl, surrounded by waterlogged paddy fields and enormous polytunnels, and has a long-held reputation for the quality of its produce. Dan, a Korean-American food expert and guide for the tour company Intrepid Travel, is on a mission to show me how the city likes to use that produce to shake things up a bit.

 

“It’s the city that Koreans go to for food,” he tells me, “but it’s always been a bit rebellious, a bit individual. Whenever there’s an election, they always seem to vote a different way to the rest of country.”

 

A short walk from the main market, Gajok Hoegwan is a case in point. Like Hyundai-ok, the restaurant has a single dish down to a fine art: bibimbap. Essentially, it’s rice mixed with vegetables and has been eaten in some form in Korea for centuries — a way to use leftovers to create a cheap meal.

 

Gajok Hoegwan, however, has elevated it to new levels. In its first-floor dining room, I find a table by windows covered with traditional paper screens, joining small groups of friends chatting over the clattering and clinking coming from the kitchen.

 

A tray of 12 side dishes appears first: garlic stems with mushrooms, dried turnip, pickled green plums, candied sweet potatoes and anchovies with gochujang (red chilli paste) among them. The main event arrives in a softly gleaming brass bowl: an artistic ensemble of rice, carrots, cucumber, spinach, fiddlehead greens, gochujang and sliced raw beef. The rice has been steamed in oxtail broth, the beef marinated with sesame, ginger and garlic, the gochujang made to a secret recipe.

 

It’s certainly like no leftovers I’ve ever cobbled together. Delicately mixed with metal chopsticks, it’s a comforting, fiery blend where each perfectly balanced ingredient takes equal footing.

 

Opened in 1979 by chef Kim Nyun-im, Gajok Hoegwan is now run by her daughter Kim Yang-mi, a cheerful woman in jeans and Crocs who comes over to chat as I eat. The intricacy of the dish is explained when she tells me her mother was inspired by the unique place her city holds in the country’s history books. Jeonju was the hometown of the royal Joseon dynasty, who ruled the wider region between 1392 and 1910.

 

Kim Nyun-im took that culinary heritage and added her own stamp to the recipe, perfecting it over many years. “Bibimbap is a traditional food in this area, but this is Joseon style,” Kim Yang-mi explains, gesturing at the side dishes and brass bowls. “My mother wanted to reintroduce the culture into the cuisine — serve the right food in the right location.”

 

Many others have sought to reinvent the dish since Kim Nyun-im first started dabbling. If you wish to try bibimbap baguettes and bibimbap croquettes, which come in plastic wrappers ready to be heated in the microwave, you can stroll a few hundred metres southeast to Jeonju Hanok Village, a collection of 800 traditional buildings restored over the past 15 years.

 

For bibimbap served in a waffle, you’ll have to head further east to a cafe on the sloping lanes of Jaman Mural Village, whose houses are daubed in artworks ranging from a woman sitting wistfully on a crescent moon to a dragon swishing an impressive tail.

 

None of these variations is likely to impress a Joseon emperor, but they certainly please the steady stream of local families and visitors who wander the streets of the hanok village, peering into its temples, shrines, shops and museums, each marked by distinctive clay roof tiles and wooden rafters. It’s immediately apparent how important food is to the city here: it’s everywhere. Friends chat under the branches of Korean pine trees, making their way through bags of water parsley dumplings. Children clutch their parents’ hands, holding long sticks of speared marshmallows in their other, sticky palms.

 

Teenage girls sit on benches trying not to spill chicken on to the silk hanbok dresses they’ve rented for informal photo shoots around the lanes. There are traditional teahouses serving aromatic blends in ceremonies the Joseon would recognise, and modern cafes serving great bowls of shaved ice topped with matcha ice cream, brownie chunks, mint leaves and pine sprigs.

 

On the edge of the village, my final stop is in a nondescript building with none of the architectural flourishes of the hanok. Here, Choi In-duk and her sister Choi Jeon-won serve a new spin on another cherished Jeonju culinary tradition: a makgeolli session. The activity — involving low-strength makgeolli (a type of fermented rice wine of 6-9% ABV) accompanied by small dishes — is centred around the Samchun-dong District south west of the city and tends to see groups of friends moving from bar to bar, drinking generally low-quality makgeolli and eating generally low-quality snacks.

 

At the sisters’ industrial-styled Yetchon Makgeolli restaurant, the experience is still squarely rooted in the convivial, but the quality is anything but low.

 

Tucking her black hair behind her ears, Choi In-duk raises a brass teapot of Yetchon’s own-make makgeolli and pours it into bowls, telling me, “If people come to Jeonju, they know they have to drink makgeolli. The water is very pure here, and that makes better quality.” The resulting drink is cloudy and uniquely creamy, with the slight tang of blue cheese.

 

One kettle of makgeolli costs just 3,300 KRW (£1.85) and comes with enough dishes to keep a group of four going for quite some time: among them, chicken with wild sesame seeds, mussels in leek broth, braised pork, kimchi pancakes and soy-marinated crab. It’s less beer and snacks than a wine-paired feast. “I want to care for my guests,” Choi In-duk continues. “And the way I do that is with honest, high-quality food and honest, high-quality drinks.”

 

☞ 아래는 위 기사를 구글 번역이 번역한 영문 기사의 '전문' 입니다.

구글 번역은 이해도를 높이기 위해 노력하고 있으며 영문 번역에 오류가 있음을 전제로 합니다.

【Below is the 'full text' of the English article translated by Google Translate.

Google Translate is working hard to improve understanding, and assumes that there are errors in the English translation】

 

National Geographic introduces 'Kongnamul GukbapㆍBibimbap', etc

Jeonju… Rated as Korea's gourmet city where tradition and innovation coexist!

 

Reporter Kim Ga-young

 

National Geographic, a global media outlet with a 136-year history and a textbook for cultural and artistic exploration, praised Jeonju as the best gastronomic city in Korea.

 

According to Jeonju City on the 30th, National Geographic recently published an article titled 'Why Jeonju is the best place to eat in South Korea', highlighting ▲ bean sprout soup at Nambu Market ▲ bibimbap ▲ makgeolli ▲ traditional tea. It introduced not only Jeonju's representative foods, but also Jeonju's cultural and historical identity.

 

This article was introduced around the world through the online edition of National Geographic on the 20th.

 

In particular, Jeonju Bibimbap was evaluated as 'a cuisine that incorporates the history of the Joseon Dynasty and Jeonju's cultural heritage', and Jeonju was evaluated as 'a city with chefs full of passion to innovate tradition' and 'a gourmet city visited by Koreans'.

 

Lee Sang-sook, international cooperation officer at Jeonju City, said, "Jeonju, which is visited by 15 million people a year, is a city that is unforgettable once you visit from abroad." He added, "Numerous global media companies and world-class figures have fallen in love with Jeonju's culture, food, art, and the charm of Jeonju people." “Sometimes they call themselves public relations ambassadors,” he said.

 

He added, "We will do our best, including global branding, to continuously promote the city brand of Jeonju to the world by utilizing Korean food such as bean sprout soup, bibimbap, and makgeolli, as well as gourmet content, culture, and historical resources such as Jeonju Observer's Table."