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Posts Tagged ‘palace’

Korean Court Cuisine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 27, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Netflix.
Lee Chae-min as the Joseon-era tyrant foodie king in Bon Appetit, Your Majesty.

If the novel Crying in H Mart didn’t get you hungering for Korean food, an unusual new series probably will.

Hanh Nguyen, executive editor at Salon, starts a review with a line from a 14th century palace cook.

” ‘How could a woman know how to prepare a royal meal?’ asks a palace cook in the Netflix series Bon Appetit, Your Majesty.

“Set five hundred years ago during Korea’s Joseon era, the hit period k-drama reveals how courtiers back then only deemed men skilled enough to craft meals worthy of royal consumption. The woman in question, Chef Yeon Ji-yeong (Im Yoon-ah), not only delivers on those high standards but exceeds them, wowing the King (Lee Chae-min) with dishes, ingredients and techniques that haven’t been seen before – literally. It turns out that Chef Yeon is a time-traveling French cuisine chef from the future.

“Bon Appetit, Your Majesty delights in trotting out Yeon’s modern, European know-how, ranging from whipping up vibrant-hued macarons to maintaining meat’s juiciness through sous vide cooking. However, the limited series similarly introduces viewers – accustomed to kimbap, ramyeon or bulgogi – to unfamiliar historical dishes: Korean palace cuisine.

“Junwon Park, who’s training to become a Korean craftsman-level cook, [says] ‘I think it’s a culture. And the reason I say that is because, just like in the Bon Appetit, Your Majesty show, they used food, not just to eat, but often as a ritualistic event. They were trying to send a message.’

“Throughout the series, the palace tasks Chef Yeon with crafting dishes to convey various intangible themes – often with her own life or the country’s future on the line. When instructed to cook a meal ‘fit for a king,’ Yeon turns to venison because deer had symbolized kings, and the tongue is seen as a rare delicacy only he has the privilege to enjoy. Therefore, the thought that goes into the care and feeding of monarchs reaches beyond mere culinary execution but also encompasses ingenuity, knowledge and a sense of diplomacy (not to mention flattery).

“ ‘That is just like how it happened in the actual Korean palace,’ Park confirmed. ‘One king, King Yeongjo, actually made a dish called tangpyeong-chae. He made this dish as a cold salad that mixes ingredients of different colors, each color representing a political faction that the palace was divided into. So by serving this dish and announcing the policy of having a quota that his palace is going to hire from all the factions, he was announcing that he wants the palace to be run like that salad – that people from different factions are coming together to create one flavor. So it was not just a dish.’

“Despite her expertise in French cuisine, Chef Yeon also demonstrates a deep understanding of Korean royal cookery and wields her modern knowledge to innovate while still maintaining the integrity of the royal dish. To embody the idea of filial piety to appeal to the Grand Queen Dowager, Yeon creates doenjang-guk, a traditional soybean paste stew, but adds two special ingredients: spinach and clams. She reveals that the spinach – an ingredient not regularly used in cooking during that time period – is full of iron and therefore can help Her Highness, who has been feeling weaker lately.

” ‘Food and medicine share the same roots,’ she says, citing the yaksikdongwon philosophy. …

“The clams, however, are the stew’s secret weapon. Knowing the Queen Dowager has long sought a doenjang-guk that tastes like her late mother’s, Yeon realizes that clams would add that mystery umami that only people who were raised near the Seomjin River or Nakdong River would have accessed. Once the Queen Dowager tastes the soup, she’s transported back to childhood and tearfully declares, ‘The soup contains family. She has given me my family through this dish.’

“Later in the series, while prepping the Grand Queen Dowager’s 70th birthday banquet, Chef Yeon must deal with a major menu-planning curveball: the birthday girl has been advised to cut out meat from her diet. Yeon certainly doesn’t want to cook dishes that would threaten the Queen Dowager’s health, especially for an occasion honoring her longevity. But dishes comprising the Korean royal banquet, such as gujeolpan, often include meat. The name gujeolpan refers to nine ingredients on a plate, with eight colorful vegetables or proteins sliced thinly and arrayed around the edge of plate, much like a mouth-watering sundial. Small crepes sit in the dish’s center and provide a wrapper for the ingredients.

” ‘One of the most grand dishes in Korean Palace cuisine is actually what she prepares for the Grand Queen Dowager, which is gujeolpan,’ said Park. ‘Today it’s often used for weddings . . . it’s to show that “I am putting in so much effort” that I’m preparing each ingredient separately, laying it out separately in a beautiful presentation, and then we are putting it together to create one ssam, just like a bossam, or the way that we eat KBBQ in lettuce today. So it has a ritualistic meaning.

“ ‘But when [Chef Yeon] prepares it, she prepares a special version of the dish that uses something like Impossible meat, so like a soy-based meat, rather than a regular meat,’ he added. The faux meat impresses the courtiers, who note the effort required for the dish.

“ ‘Seeing all of you enjoy it so much, I couldn’t ask for more,’ says Yeon, before addressing the Grand Queen Dowager, ‘May you always be safe in good health.’ ”

More at Salon, here.

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Sumerian Palace Revealed in Iraq

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 28, 2023| 8 Comments »

Photo: British Museum.
An aerial view of the ancient city of Girsu in Tello, Iraq. The Sumerians inhabited the ancient eastern Mediterranean region of Mesopotamia. 

Today we have more archaeology for people who love stories about newly discovered ancient places — particularly stories about archaeologists no one believed.

Tobi Thomas reports at the Guardian that “the archaeologist who led the discovery of a lost Sumerian temple in the ancient city of Girsu has said he was accused of ‘making it up’ and wasting funding.

“Dr Sebastien Rey led the project that discovered the 4,500-year-old palace in modern-day Iraq – thought to hold the key to more information about one of the first known civilizations.

“The Lord Palace of the Kings of the ancient Sumerian city Girsu – now located in Tello, southern Iraq – was discovered during fieldwork last year by British and Iraqi archaeologists. Alongside the ancient city, more than 200 cuneiform tablets were discovered, containing administrative records of the ancient city.

“Rey said that when he first brought up the project at international conferences no one believed him. ‘Everyone basically told me, “Oh no you’re making it up you’re wasting your time you’re wasting British Museum UK government funding.” ‘ …

“Girsu, one of the earliest known cities in the history of humankind, was built by the ancient Sumerians, who between 3,500 and 2,000 BC invented writing, built the first cities and created the first codes of law. The ancient city was first discovered 140 years ago, but the site has been the target of looting and illegal excavations. …

“Alongside the discovery of the palace and the tablets, the main temple dedicated to the Sumerian god, Ninĝirsu, was also identified. Before this pioneering fieldwork, its existence was known only from ancient inscriptions discovered alongside the first successful excavation of the ancient city.

“The project follows the Iraqi scheme first funded by the British government in response to the destruction of important heritage sites in Iraq and Syria by Islamic State. Since its establishment, more than 70 Iraqis have been trained to conduct eight seasons of fieldwork at Girsu. …

“The Sumerians inhabited the ancient eastern Mediterranean region of Mesopotamia, and were responsible for many technological advancements, including measurements of time as well as writing.

“According to Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum, the site of the ancient city in southern Iraq was ‘one of the most fascinating sites I’ve ever visited. …

” ‘The collaboration between the British Museum, state board of antiquities and heritage of Iraq, and the Getty represents a vital new way of building cooperative cultural heritage projects internationally. … While our knowledge of the Sumerian world remains limited today, the work at Girsu and the discovery of the lost palace and temple hold enormous potential for our understanding of this important civilization, shedding light on the past and informing the future.’

“The ancient Sumerians may not be as well known a civilization as the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, but according to Dr Timothy Potts, the directory of the Getty Museum, Girsu is ‘probably one of the most important heritage sites in the world that very few people know about. … This innovative [Girsu Project] provides critical support for the uniquely important archaeological site of Girsu, through the training of Iraqi specialists entrusted with its development for sustainable archaeology and tourism.’

“Iraq’s culture minister, Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani, said: ‘The British archaeological excavations in Iraq will further unveil significant ancient eras of Mesopotamia, as it is a true testimony to the strong ties between the two countries to enhance the joint cooperation.’ ” More at the Guardian, here.

The Guardian adds the “explainer” below is case your memory of the Sumerians is as fuzzy as mine.

“The Sumerians were the inhabitants of Sumer, which is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of Mesopotamia, located in modern-day southern Iraq. According to archaeological evidence, they built about a dozen city-states in the fourth millennium BC.

“Girsu, which is located in Tello, Iraq, was first discovered 140 years ago, and was significant in that it first revealed to the world the existence of the Sumerian civilization, as well as bringing to light some of the most vital monuments of Mesopotamian art and architecture.

“The Sumerians were ancient pioneers, having advanced the craft of writing, writing literature, hymns and prayers. They built the first known cities as well as creating the first known code of law. They also perfected several existing forms of technology, including the wheel, the plough and mathematics.

“The epic of Gilgamesh, considered the world’s oldest surviving piece of literature, derives from five Sumerian poems.

“They were also notably one of the first civilizations to brew beer, which was seen by the ancient people as a key to a healthy heart and liver.”

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Spectacular Old Cinema Buildings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2019| 5 Comments »

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Photo: Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
Two French photographers spent years capturing the new uses of old movie theaters, like this one. Now a gym, the building was once famed as the Alhambra Theater of San Francisco.

Sometimes spectacular old buildings simply cannot be returned to their original purpose. Times change. But as I learned from pictures by two French photographers, many people value the old movie theaters and are giving them new life.

Michael Hardy writes at Wired, “Between the 1920s and the 1950s, Hollywood studios built thousands of ornate movie palaces in cities across the United States. Warner Bros., Paramount, RKO, MGM, and others competed to build the biggest and gaudiest cinematic cathedrals to showcase their big-budget blockbusters. In this vertically integrated era of filmmaking, when the major studios tightly controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of movies, these palaces served as the showrooms in which they displayed their wares. Seating thousands of spectators, the theaters were decorated in a fanciful array of styles, including art deco, art nouveau, and ancient Egyptian.

“In 1948 the US Supreme Court found that such vertical integration violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the biggest movie studios to divest themselves of their theater chains. The decision spelled the end for the era of the movie palace, as the studios were forced to sell or close their theater holdings. Television and suburbanization — the grand old theaters were mostly located in downtown areas — provided the coup de grâce.

“One of the grandest of the old palaces was Detroit’s United Artists Theatre, a 2,000-seat, Spanish Gothic–style venue that showed movies from 1928 until the 1970s. French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre stumbled across the abandoned theater in 2005 while working on a series about the effects of deindustrialization on the city.

“Stunned by the building’s fading grandeur, Marchand and Meffre began traveling the country, seeking out other abandoned theaters to photograph.

‘The amount of fantasy and detail are amazing in some of the theaters,’ Meffre says. ‘I don’t think we have anything comparable in Europe except for our cathedrals.’ …

“After discovering some tastefully repurposed palaces, such as Brooklyn’s cavernous Paramount Theater—now used as a gymnasium by Long Island University—they expanded the scope of their project. Not all renovations were so sensitive. Marchand and Meffre shot palaces that have been transformed into grocery stores, office buildings, even school bus depots. …

“Because the palaces are so expensive to tear down, many have survived more or less intact, a process the photographer calls ‘preservation by neglect.’ ”

Funny. Here’s to life-saving neglect!

More at Wired, here.

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