Jeong Kwan: ​​the story of the Buddhist nun turned Netflix star chef

The philosophy of Jeong Kwan (Yeongju, South Korea, 64 years old) both in life and in the kitchen is the same: to understand the connection of everything that exists in nature.

This Buddhist nun, turned into an international culinary reference, became known after her appearance in the

docuserie

despite not having a restaurant and instead cultivating and cooking for the ascetics of the Baegyangsa temple on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, 270 kilometers from Seoul. Kwan, who is visiting Spain for the first time, will star on Thursday in two events in Madrid, at the Korean Cultural Center, within the Village Summers program organized by the City Council. Before, he shared with EL PAÍS a walk through the market and some reflections on how we eat and how that influences our relationship with the world.

The nun arrived in the Spanish capital on Saturday at midnight and less than twelve hours later she toured the Mercado de Maravillas in search of ingredients and was surprised by the vitality of the place.

"He is much more dynamic and friendly than I imagined," Kwan confesses to this newspaper after making the purchase.

"I thought I was more off due to the covid situation," adds the nun, highlighting the positive energy she felt from sellers and customers in the Madrid market.

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The food on the stalls has also impacted him, but for different reasons. "Although they are animal products, the way of preservation is the same, like salting or pickling, that we do with the vegetables in the temple," says Kwan, who is vegan, like many of the religious of Buddhism and admits some discomfort at the presence of hams and sausages. "Now that I have more experience and have met more people, I have a greater empathy for the gastronomic culture of each country, but always thinking about respecting animals and without generating waste," says the nun, who does not use garlic or leeks when he cooks in the temple, and adds that if the consumption of meat cannot be avoided, at least it must be ensured that it has a “natural origin”. In short, avoid unnecessary damage and expenses."The most important thing is to respect living beings," sums up the nun, who believes that the coronavirus crisis has brought greater awareness about what and how to eat. “I think it will be a more lasting change because nobody expected this situation. This makes us re-evaluate the past and leads us to search for a more natural life ”.

The alchemy of the philosopher chef

She centers the first chapter of the third season of

, released in 2017. Jeff Gordinier, culinary critic for

, admits in the docuseries that when he was invited to try the nun's food, he imagined bad rice and sweet potato bowls cooked and only attended at the insistence of French chef Éric Ripert, owner of the Manhattan restaurant where it took place.

The journalist ended up praising the cook in a piece entitled

.

Six years have passed since that and four years since the

episode was broadcast

and, while the world has radically changed, the Korean's simplicity and dedication seem unchanging.

"I'm just a nun," repeats the cook when asked repeatedly about the fame she has acquired for her appearance in the Netflix production. "I'm happy to be able to share it with people from all over the world, but not much has changed," Kwan emphasizes. Since the broadcast of the program, she says, people from various parts of the world have visited Baegyangsa Temple, something that she is very grateful for. "If before they ate with greed and without conscience, now they consume with more respect."

The Buddhist nun made a special presentation for the press in Madrid on Tuesday where she prepared, with the help of her apprentices, rice wrapped in lotus leaves, pyogo mushrooms - also known by their Japanese name, shiitake - stewed with malt syrup, cherry tomatoes and pickled plums. “Cooking is a type of meditation,” explained Kwan in the middle of the job, a show where he not only offered tea grown in the mountains of his temple in South Jeolla, but also shared a prayer and taught breathing exercises to those present. Due to safety regulations imposed by the pandemic, it was not possible to eat on site and attendees were delivered food in plastic containers inside paper bags.

Although it is easy to fall for cliches of Eastern mysticism born of the Western imagination, the true alchemy of Jeong Kwan is nothing esoteric: it is discipline, simplicity and a divine presentation.

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