Is a Buddhist Nun Making the World’s ‘Most Exquisite’ Food?
by Siti Zawani
@ 23 Oct 2015
Is a woman with a vegan arsenal of ingredients, a limited audience, and no professional culinary training one of the world's top chefs? This is the question author Jeff Gordinier poses in a profile of Zen Buddhist nun Jeong Kwan, featured this week's issue of T Magazine.
Kwan lives and cooks in a secluded monastery several hours outside of Seoul, carrying out centuries-old Buddhist culinary traditions including fermentation, dehydration, foraging, and seasonality in relative obscurity. Yet her techniques and approach to cooking have captured the attention of prominent Western chefs such as Chef Eric Ripert and Chef Rene Redzepi.
Kwan began her culinary journey when she joined the Zen order at only 19 years of age and realised that the best way for her to share her Buddhist philosophy was by "communicating with sentient beings through the medium of food." Read more about her culinary beliefs at
http://goo.gl/1q5CFR
