Cover Thanks to restaurants like Nouri, many forgotten culinary techniques are being revived for the modern palate (Photo: Instagram / @restaurantnouri)
Thanks to restaurants like Nouri, many forgotten culinary techniques are being revived for the modern palate (Photo: Instagram / @restaurantnouri)
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These forgotten culinary techniques—once practical, now nearly poetic—offer a glimpse into how cooks worked with nature rather than against it, and why some of the most interesting ideas in food are being rediscovered precisely because they were once abandoned
Modern cooking has a habit of mistaking efficiency for progress. Gas stoves replaced embers, refrigerators replaced cellars and precision tools replaced the kind of instinct that comes from doing the same thing every day for decades. In the process, many culinary techniques didn’t so much disappear as become inconvenient—too slow, too laborious, too difficult to standardise.
Across Asia, however, a small but determined group of chefs, scholars and monks are quietly reopening old texts and unearthing methods that once defined how food tasted. These techniques weren’t eccentric flourishes; they were solutions to real problems—preservation, texture, balance—before technology stepped in. What’s striking is not how strange these culinary techniques feel today, but how modern many of them suddenly seem.
See more: Real-life Mangunrok: Asia’s oldest cookbooks and their modern afterlives
Seolyameok (snow-drenched beef) — Korea
Above Chef Im Seong-keun uses a Joseon-era temperature shock technique that predates modern searing logic by centuries in a crucial challenge
Seolyameok is making its way back to modern consciousness thanks to Chef Im Seong-keun in Culinary Class Wars Season 2. This method appears in royal court records from Korea’s Joseon dynasty, a time when beef was precious, and mistakes were not tolerated. The method—half-grilling beef over fierce charcoal, plunging it into snow or icy spring water, then returning it to the fire—was a deliberate manipulation of protein structure. The sudden cold tightened the surface fibres, trapping moisture inside before the final cook.
As kitchens modernised and refrigeration became reliable, the need for seasonal snow and intuition-based timing made the technique impractical and eventually obsolete. Today, it reads like a historical footnote until you realise it achieves what modern chefs call “reverse searing”, without thermometers or jargon. Its revival has less to do with nostalgia than with acknowledging that ancient cooks understood texture on a molecular level—long before anyone bothered to name it.
Juk-hwang-go (bamboo stem fermentation) — China and Vietnam
Before glazed ceramics and glass jars became common, bamboo served as both container and ingredient. Rice, meats or herbs sealed inside green bamboo absorbed sap as heat coaxed fermentation forward, lending sweetness and aroma while preserving the food. The method declined with the rise of industrial fermentation, which favoured consistency and sanitation over environmental interaction. Bamboo fermentation is unpredictable and unpredictability is inconvenient at scale. Today, it survives largely through Korean temple food traditions.
Suna-Gama (Sand-roasting) — India and Central Asia
Above Thanks to social media, this dry-heat technique that turns sand into a perfectly even cooking medium is making a comeback
Sand-roasting predates both ovens and oil frying, using scorching hot river sand to cook grains and nuts through uniform, grease-free heat. Corn pops, chickpeas blister and peanuts roast evenly without absorbing fat. The method fell out of favour as industrial oils made deep-frying faster and easier, especially in urban centres. What disappeared was not convenience, but nuance—the clean flavour sand imparts without heaviness. While still practised in rural markets, sand-roasting has found new life through street food historians and culinary anthropologists in India, and in experimental kitchens exploring low-oil cooking. Its revival is subtle but growing, framed not as tradition but as efficiency rediscovered.
Sogok-ju ‘shadow ageing’ — Korea
Sogok-ju was fermented in total darkness for around 100 days, a practice believed to preserve delicacy and prevent bitterness. Underground cellars provided stable temperatures and a complete absence of light, allowing floral and honeyed notes to develop naturally. The technique became obsolete as modern breweries embraced stainless steel tanks and visible fermentation for quality control. Darkness, in industrial brewing, was seen as unnecessary mysticism. Today, small-scale revival efforts led by traditional liquor artisans and scholars associated with the Korean Intangible Cultural Heritage movement have brought Sogok-ju back into limited production. The result is a wine that feels startlingly modern in its restraint—less about intoxication, more about quiet complexity.
Narezushi (original fermented sushi) — Japan
Above Sushi before freshness became its defining virtue.
Narezushi originated as a preservation method, with fish cured through months-long fermentation with rice. The rice, once sour and spent, was discarded, leaving intensely flavoured fish behind. Refrigeration and vinegar transformed sushi into a celebration of immediacy, relegating fermentation to history. Today, only a handful of families around Lake Biwa still makes narezushi traditionally. Beyond Japan, its revival has taken a conceptual turn at restaurants like Appetite/Nouri in Singapore, where chef Ivan Brehm situates narezushi within a broader Southeast Asian fermentation lineage. Served thoughtfully, it challenges diners to reconsider what sushi was always meant to be: preservation first, pleasure second.
See more: Why culinary visionary Ivan Brehm wants to celebrate amazing food, art and music under one roof
Hoe-ryu (live-fire internal searing) — ancient China and Korea
Hoe-ryu involved placing red-hot stones inside meat, wrapping it in leaves and burying it to cook evenly. The method ensured uniform doneness long before ovens or metal cookware existed. As woks and roasting pits became standard, the technique vanished, deemed unnecessarily complex. Today, it survives mainly through archaeological reconstructions and culinary history programmes, particularly in Chinese and Korean universities studying pre-metal cooking methods. While rarely practised in commercial kitchens, its influence is felt in modern low-temperature cooking philosophies. It remains a reminder that even ancient cooks thought deeply about heat distribution.
Cooking by the 24 Solar Terms — China
The 24 Solar Terms once dictated not just farming but eating, aligning diet with climate, humidity and bodily balance. Industrial food systems flattened this rhythm, making all ingredients available all the time. Chef Tam Kwok-fung is among the few modern chefs reviving this philosophy, designing menus that change every 15 days in response to solar shifts. His approach is neither nostalgic nor medicinal; it is practical, rooted in the belief that timing shapes flavour as much as technique. In a world obsessed with seasonality, this goes one step further—precision seasonality.
See more: Wynn Palace’s Cantonese Master Chef Tam Kwok-Fung presents Chef Tam’s Seasons
Modoki-ryori (ancient mock cooking) — Japan
Modoki-ryori emerged in Buddhist temples, where monks recreated meat textures using vegetables out of necessity and ingenuity. Mountain yams became eel; tofu skin mimicked poultry. As meat became widely accessible, these techniques faded into obscurity. Chef Daisuke Nomura of Shojin Sougo in Tokyo has revived these culinary techniques, treating them as structural lessons rather than novelty. His work reveals that imitation was never deception—it was discipline. Long before plant-based dining became fashionable, monks were solving texture with precision and restraint.
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Sasha Lim-Uy Mariposa is a lifestyle journalist who is known for her food writing. Based in Manila, she also covers entertainment and dining, as well as a broad range of topics. She was the former digital editor at Esquire Philippines and was the digital managing editor at Spot.ph, and now writes for the different Tatler Asia markets as a contributing writer for T-Labs.
