Zen Buddhist Nuns Go Global: Temple Food in South Korea

ABSTRACT This article examines the recent popularization of Buddhist temple food in contemporary South Korea. It specifically probes the circumstances that have led to nuns taking on the leadership role in excavating, preserving, reinterpreting and popularizing temple food. Nuns have proactively responded to a myriad of contemporary challenges, such as food insecurity, public health, the loss of shared community and the ecological crisis, and seized the new opportunities to open up a noble space of their own by investing new value into temple food as a means to achieve enlightenment and an ethical life. The article introduces some of the leading “master chefs of temple food,” a formal designation awarded to Buddhist nuns and monks who have made exceptional contributions to the development of temple food. It also illustrates how the popularization of temple food has intersected significantly with the general promotion of Korean cuisine (hansik) as authentic cultural heritage in the age of globalization, which has tended to result in the growing commercialization of temple food.