"I would not consider myself a good cook or not, but I do enjoy making a good difference to people who eat my food. Hopefully they will get something out of my good intentions. We use ingredients in cooking, and in the process of preparing food, we develop the connection with our ingredients. The consumption of food is broken down into contributing to building our minds, which in return will facilitate the growing of more ingredients. It is the basic cycle of life, intertwining between us and our food, and rather similar to ‘you are what you eat’, even in a spiritual way.”

When Tatler Dining contributor Mina Park spent time with Jeong Kwan back in 2017, she observed that she and the monastery placed great emphasis on cooking and tasting with their bare hands. “Jeong Kwan seunim uses her hands a lot when she cooks. So does Myojin seunim, the other nun at the hermitage, who also has an ease in the kitchen,” she writes. “This is a very Korean way to cook. We use our hands to feel closer to the food. When cooking, Jeong Kwan seunim even uses her fingers to scoop up whatever is in the pot with her fingers and place a sizeable amount in her mouth to taste and check the seasoning.”

The nuns believe that all of their energy comes from their hands, and that when cooking, you pass your energy from them to the food, positive or negative—it’s what gives food flavour.

“In order to be happy in this world, one must view things in the simplest ways, or as things are without too much complications. By doing so we are sending good vibes to our surroundings, and more importantly, to our ingredients that when combined with good intentions, become good food that not only nurture others, but also to ourselves. It is as much food for the body as it is food for the mind. Everyone in the world is entitled to this.”

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