The Myth of Doenjang Jjigae

No one knows what it is made of. The last chef died in a car accident. And it is more than just a recipe at stake. Something more is becoming extinct. Perhaps, the butterflies.

This is the theme of a Korean film I could never decipher completely. It remained elusive, until I remembered it after years. But this time, it did not look the same.

By now, work life was demanding. Binge watching was a luxury. I was no longer at liberty to watch the entire film in one night, in one sitting. So, it spanned across three days.

It had a simple name. Its makers decided to call it The Recipe (2010). The Korean name referred directly to the Korean ingredient, ‘된장/Doenjang’.

What is it about?

The answer to that question is subjective, and up to every audience to figure out.

Is it just a mythical food that keeps your body fresh after you die? Something that drags a criminal on the hunt irresistibly, like a moth to a flame?

Or is it something we are all looking for, only to never find it again?

When I first watched it years ago, perhaps I knew better. The images travelled through my veins back then. Now, it is a feeling I forgot, except I remember feeling it.

The jjigae was the last wish of someone on death row before exiting the world with a smile. But it was meant to be a riddle.

Because none of us knows exactly who the anchor was. He went after everyone he could find to figure it out. In the end, it seemed like he and the Goblin man were the same person. They were two alter egos just meeting themselves.

Somewhere in it all, it became an existential question. Because the maker of the stew, the criminal and the Goblin man—all of them ceased to exist. The Goblin man was the chef’s lover. She died with the second man in her life in the same car. He too died, leaving his twin behind.

And so many things that were happening turned out to be illusions.

Perhaps, all of them were the same person. They did not exist separately to begin with.

Otherwise, why’d it end with the anchor asking someone, ‘you just wait’?

What the Recipe is Made of

Jang Hye-jin was the chef of the film, the only one in the world who knew how to make it—the Doenjang Jjigae.

After her dead body is sent for postmortem, along with a deceased industrialist—it is broken down into its chemical compositions. The doctor informs the anchor that ‘the doenjang holding part of the body was fresh’, and ‘the crystal structure of the sodium chloride had a purity of 99.7% to 100%  ’. He never saw a sodium chloride like this.

Another specialist informed, it is something that ‘can’t exist in this world’.

Others were wondering, too. Some words, like ‘woman’s cream’, or a hidden scandal about an allegedly ‘homosexual’ industrialist, were thrown around somewhat mindlessly.

This was the only odd part, but perhaps, realistic, too. Or the only scenes where the film conformed to some degree of realism.

But other than that, the rest of it is still an unexplained mystery. 

According to the anchor, the jjigae was made of ‘crocks of clay saturated with ume (a type of Japanese apricot used for ume wine) blossoms, salt from the seawater dried in the sunlight, soybeans grown by baby pigs, ume wine yeast, water from a fountain flowing under a lacquer tree, resonance created by crickets, sunshine, wind and tears’.

The end result was something butterflies would get attracted to and cover your entire dead body, in case you died a while after eating it.

The Story of a Korean Stew

It is nowhere meant to be just a mundane bowl of stew. But at the end of the day, it is also the stew. It is what remains after the fairy tale.

It is about a village where Korean farmers are growing soybeans as far as your eyes can see—where they tell each other that ‘Goblins were coming to eat the soybeans’. Not just Goblins, the Gods descended from heaven, too, just to taste it! It is where they celebrate their annual festival with music, homemade wine and the Goblin masks.

The jjigae is not merely a jjigae. It is the story of a people and how they lived their lives for a thousand years. Until the world found them.

In a flashback, the Goblin man tells Hye-jin that Doenjang once used to be a dowry from the bride.

It is also about the old radio at the Ajumoni’s tavern where Hye-jin took shelter. Just as much as it is about the Korean saltmakers who make the finest salt on earth, which alone is ‘better than many soup bases’.

And it is also about the fountain under a lacquer tree in the forest. Or the old Soybean specialist lady. Or the blind potter who smells people. He made the crock from the flower-scented clay where the jjigae would be stored.

It is about a people from a land who lived. They survived wars after wars, invasions after invasions, and they are still there—just as the Doenjang Jjigae. Nothing could take it away.

The film uses their Jjigae as a metaphor and a symbol, builds a myth around it and silently tells their story.

A Woman’s Movie

Lee Seong-goon/Anna Lee is the director of the film. Perhaps, it played a great role in centering a traditional recipe that is rather an everyday thing for the Koreans. She treated it like a treasure instead.

Ryu Seung-ryong, Lee Yo-won and Lee Dong-wook portrayed the main roles.

It is a very personal movie for a very niche audience who will fall in love with it. If you are one of them, do not hesitate to watch it. It will stay as a therapeutic memory—because the film itself is.