Yang Yong-jin, expert who preserved Jeju’s culinary heritage, dies at 60

Yang Yong-jin, a researcher of traditional Jeju cuisine, died Monday. He was 60. Yang’s surviving family told The Korea Times that he died of cancer at Jeju National University Hospital. Born in Jeju in 1965, Yang was the son of Kim Ji-soon, who was recognized in 2010 as the island’s first master of traditional Jeju cuisine. He graduated from Ohyeon High School and went on to study architecture at Jeju College of Technology. After working in performance planning, Yang opened a baking school in 1996. A 2000 trip to Italy introduced him to the slow food movement, which emphasizes traditional food culture and local ingredients. Inspired, he later founded the Institute for Preservation of Jeju's Traditional Local Food. Yang learned to cook traditional Jeju dishes such as bracken and beef soup (gosari yukgaejang), gulfweed and pork soup (momguk), pork cartilage soup (jeopjjak-bbone-guk) and glutinous rice cakes (omegitteok) from his mother. Jeju’s cuisine, shaped by the island’s isolation and limited arable land, differs from that of the mainland. It primarily uses grains, seafood, vegWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times