233: Wylie Dufresne

26:20You know, we think critically, we think creatively. We don't think in a tasting menu format. I will say, you know, if somebody said, let's not talk about the finances, let's not worry about it, let's just, you know, sky's the limit, would you go back to doing that? That would be tough for me. I mean, those, you know, that's a grind. It's a real grind. There was a pressure. You know, you felt the pressure to constantly come up with a new thing all the time, all the time. And some of those ideas, techniques, things would take months to figure out. And so the idea of like, well, how come we don't change the menu more often, do this more?

26:57Because it's hard to come up with new stuff. It's hard to be unique, you know, super quick. And, you know, how to figure out how to deep fry Holland. I mean, it's like a magician doesn't change the magic show every day. You know, the magician. I don't think so. I don't think so. If they do, you know, again, I'm not here to criticize restaurants to change their menu every day. No, no, you're not. But they're just kind of moving our ingredients around on a board. You're like shuffling the cards and saying we cooked a duck with a rhubarb today. Let's cook the bass with the rhubarb tomorrow and the duck with the turnips and the bass.

27:30You know, you're moving things around and doing wonderful, delicious, exciting things. But like when what we were trying to do was it was fun, but it was, you know, it was it was hard. It felt like at times it was a special time. But there was this sort of space race between like a group of restaurants around the world that were always trying to out. Bully, Alinea. I'll name a few more of you. Sure. Muguritz. There was like this space race. We were all pushing and pushing. And let's see. You know, the Internet was kind of early in terms of like, hey, what are these guys up to? Let me see. You know.

28:03And so it was it was fun. But it also there was a pressure that some of that I don't necessarily miss. But the people, the restaurant, the space. Yeah. I mean, I also I'm not so sure, too, if people are still up for that that giant slog of a meal. anymore. It's interesting. You know, auto mix, I think about number two on Pete Wells' latest list of 100 in New York. I mean, auto mix is, it's a long meal. It's true. And a great meal. Absolutely. And a great meal. And so, yeah, perhaps I'm wrong, but No, I don't want to have a place that people want to come to maybe once a week versus maybe once a year.

28:45Like, I'm enjoying that. Wiley, that's cool that you say that. I'm enjoying a thing where where it's not just, you know, we've had people that have already been in three times, you know, and we've been open not even four weeks. And so that's different, but that's fun too. And it's fun to be a neighborhood spot that people feel like let's roll in there. Let's talk about back at WD-50, there was a term called molecular gastronomy. It's kind of harsh right now to even think about that term. It's so clunky, but it says something about the food. I mean, I don't know how you feel about that term. You certainly didn't coin that term.

29:20I don't think you were saying it all the time. But where does that style of cooking land today? Are there people doing that? Well, that term is a bit misleading. I agree fully. Because it's a school. It's a type of scientific study. It would be like saying, what type of cooking do you do? Biology. That's weird. You know, that's you can't cook. They're not the same. So molecular gastronomists are scientists studying what happens to our food as we cook it. And chefs are over here preparing food. And so they have a codependence on each other. The chef would love to know the information that the molecular gastronomist has about what they're doing.

30:01And the molecular gastronomist would love to know how we're cooking. They have subjects to study. So we have this wonderful relationship with each other. But to say I'm a molecular gastronomist is is no more correct than to call the molecular gastronomist a chef. It's not fair in either direction. It's also does. Like you said, it's clunky. It's not delicious. Like, hey, honey, you want to go to dinner night? Should we go have Thai? Should we have Italian or molecular gastronomy? Like we're never it's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. No one's ever going to say, yeah, let's go have molecular gastronomy.

30:32That being said, in my youth, I would get up on my soapbox and I would stop my feet about it. But at this point, when you use that term, people know the kind of food you make or made. And so I don't mind anymore. I don't mind it. And what did we go for? We went from molecular gastronomy to modernist cuisine. Is that any better? Yeah, modernist. There was like the idea of the edge cuisine. Does that sound any more delicious? Not really. So let's just stick with molecular gastronomy. That's fine. But, you know, and then people say, well, thank God, you know, WD-50 is closed. And then molecular gastronomy, we're finally putting it to bed.

31:04Wait, people say that? It's kind of fucked up. We're putting it to bed. You know, we can finally move on from this. And unfortunately, you know, we may have lost the battle because we're closed. But molecular gastronomy won the war. We're everywhere. Yeah. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere that you go to eat. Some of the things that myself and my contemporaries at the time. Xanthan gum is selling out on Amazon. We added to the canon. You know, we contributed to the body of work. We left something there that's never going away. And xanthan gum is an excellent example. So we won.

31:42You know, I hate to say it, but we won. It's in there. All the restaurants that you go to are in some way, shape or form using some of the techniques or some of the technology, some of the equipment, some of the ingredients that people like myself and all those other chefs you mentioned earlier brought into. Oh, my God. I mean, look at like CPG. Like, look at—you can buy sous vide chicken, like, anywhere now. It's, like, sold in five or seven different brands. I go to—do you have egg bites at Starbucks? Yeah. Because that's—they're all made sous vide. Right, right. So there you go. Yeah, no. Like, it's so pervasive that it's not even— I hate to say it to the haters, but there's no argument to be had.

32:25There's nothing—we won. Yeah. We won. Our stuff is out there. But, you know, like the being part of like all the first generation, we were kind of like so excited. We were doing something new and different. So we were there was a little bit of like, hey, look what we're doing. Look what we can do. Isn't this awesome? And that's maybe where we got ourselves in trouble because Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4 are like they're not talking about it. They're just putting that. They're not saying, hey, we discovered xanthan gum and it's pretty neat. They're just putting it in there and you're and you're not even noticing it.

32:57But the result of the xanthan gum and what it can do to make your meal, there's any number of ways it can contribute to your meal. But you know what I mean? We're not – people are being less showy about it, which is smart. We were – and we weren't trying to be showy. We were just excited. You were excited. You were excited. I think the perception too was just looking at the cost of the meal and usually these big ideas with quote-unquote microbiology were happening in tasting format. And some would say they were not approachable to the average diner. But obviously there was a reason the cost structure was set up that way because that's how you make it happen.

33:30When you're – with this excitement, there's – you know, you have a requirement, a financial requirement to do a tasting menu, right? Yeah. I mean just – do you have any idea how much R &D goes into coming up with all this stuff? Great point. I mean where does that – where is that supposed to get funded? Right. You know? You have to – like there's a lot that goes on and again, I don't want to complain about – You're not. No, no, no. This is an open conversation about a period that's super influential compared to punk rock in 78 in New York City. This is the moment when food changed for everyone.

34:05Downtown New York and in Spain and in France and in London. Super important. Yeah, and I just feel lucky that we added to the conversation. That's it. I feel very proud of the crew and the team, and we added to the dialogue. Do you get together with some of the guys, like Malcolm or Alex Stupak or any of these guys? Do you guys have reunions for WD-50 at all? We don't. You know, we don't. Maybe we should have a reunion. I mean, we did a 10-year anniversary, and that was pretty awesome. I invited everybody that had worked for me that had gone on and had, you know, their own restaurant or was working somewhere.

34:40And we were still open at the time. And they came and we did a 10-year anniversary. That was 10 years ago. Dinner at WD-50. And that was pretty fun. So that was cool. I have that menu on the wall in my house that everybody signed. But I try to keep up with a bunch of them sort of, you know, from far away. Unfortunately, it's getting easier to reach out to people from far away. So you have to make less of an effort. I don't love this bit of technology for that. You don't pick up the phone and have like a nice or write a letter. I mean, food editorial people out there do this story. I mean, we could do it, I guess, at Taste, but it's not really our domain.

35:11But like get the reunion together. Do the photo shoot. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of great people. And like I said, they all mean the world to me and I love them. I talk to them. Some of them, you know, like Alex. I saw Alex last week and I saw Francis last night. And, you know, Sam came for dinner and a bunch of the guys, you know, our bar program at Stretch is run by a guy that worked for me at Alder. So there's a few people out there that I stay in touch with. A few more questions about New York. Just in general, I want to ask you, as a New Yorker, some restaurants that you just really are loving right now.

35:44I feel like this is a great time. We're having a lot of our listeners are coming to New York to visit this spring and summer. Where should we be going? Well, I mean, I think some places that I've been to that I love. I had a great meal at Teresi recently. I have to say that was super fun and delicious. Top of their game, Three Stars New York Times. Rich was on the show. Definitely one of the hotter restaurants of the last five years in New York. And just super delicious. Absolutely. You know what I mean? And great. The space, you know, the Puck Building is an awesome, cool building. Yeah, as a New Yorker, you must have been really excited to see a restaurant like that in that space.

36:22Oh, my God. I mean, we rented out the Puck Building in high school for our senior year party. Yeah. They let us have kegs in there. We were like 16-year-olds having kegs in the puck in what is now REI, when it used to be in event space. That's fun. I was like, this is amazing. So good. This is so cool. Joji, the sushi place, you know, Danielle's sushi spot in Grand Central, which is, I just had a great meal there. That was a lot of fun. I love sushi, Japanese food. Shuko's always a spot I would say go to. I want to go to Misha, you know, Alex, Stupak's new place. I'm excited to go there. I'd love to try to get into Yoshino for sushi, I haven't been there but that looks yeah, Yoshino looks cool, I'm going to Misha as well, I'm going to have Alex on the show soon Kono, I would love to check out I've secretly it's now no longer a secret because I'm going to say it right now I've always wanted to have a yakitori spot I think that yakitori is really neat and I think that our approach to yakitori would be a fun twist well you've clearly thought about it a lot, I mean it's leaking into the pizza realm so clearly you've thought about Yeah.

37:27Yeah. Yakitori is super cool, super fun. S &P, I live right down the block from S &P. Again, I'm a diner lover. I loved what it was. I love what they've turned it into. I think that's a super fun spot to go check out. It's amazing how they've transformed that space fully, like complete rethink without actually changing the space. Yeah. It's just, that's really hard. Yeah. I mean, that's fun. I used to love going to sit at the counter there and having some liverwurst. You know what I mean? That was my dad's. That was his sandwich right there. Liverwurst? Liverwurst. So good. That's like one of the most underappreciated things.

38:06Liverwurst? Yes. Let's go there. I mean, when you think of liverwurst, is there a brand? Do you? I mean, we get Oscar Mayer in the Midwest, which is not the brand I would pick probably. But is there like a local brand? You know who makes the best liverwurst? Let's go. Gabrielle Kreuter. Oh, yeah. Go up there and ask him for some under the table, hand you a tube in the gold wrapper, just like the old Jimmy Dean. Yeah. In the gold. I mean, his liverwurst is no joke. It's when it's good, it hits. And do you have it just on like a nice crusty bread or do you have it on crackers? Yeah. Yeah. Or just on my hands and rubbing it.

38:43Yeah. I mean. Liverwurst is one of those things. I think I have to eat it alone. It definitely has. It's so good. Give me one more. I think you probably have one more spot. I mean, Naru. I want to go check out Naru. I mean, I think it's really cool what's going on at Rock Center. I think that's a pretty neat – everything up there is pretty wild. I'm sure you were approached. Did you talk to them about some stuff? You know, that probably all happened when maybe some of our diner stuff was or it wasn't going to happen. Yeah, wasn't quite in the cards. So it wasn't in the cards. But I think, like, what they're doing up there at Rock Center is really cool and pretty neat.

39:19and, you know. Well, as a New Yorker, you can say that in a different way than I can. I mean, I've been here 20 years, but you've been here the whole time. And like, that's a really important part of New York and having it be a full of like Claire's Boutique style, like Chosky shops and not really great food in Subway before. And now having, you know, I got to give us some mesas there, like great, great falafels. I love some mesas. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of great stuff up there. Yeah. And I just think it's cool that that, I mean, Rock Center deserves. world-class food. And again, not to sort of speak ill of the dead in terms of the restaurants that were there and they're gone.

39:56And, you know, Ed Brown did a great, great restaurant down there, the Sea Grill. And so there was quite, you know. Back in the day, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to say, I'm just saying in general, when you're walking the corridors, in like 2008, it wasn't, you know. And it's nice to see like that whole, there's something for everyone in there. Like you said, you can walk the corridors. There's all that stuff down there. and then on the Concord, there's like, that's a, you can spend a couple days just moving through Rock Center and the food there, and I think it's pretty neat. Last couple questions.

40:28I have to ask you just about cookbooks because you clearly are a student of the game. You ordered all those pizza cookbooks up, you know, if you're up in Connecticut home, but tell me exactly what are you liking right now with cookbooks? Do you have any new titles? I'm sure you hit up Kitchen Arts and Letters once in a while. That is one of my favorite spots to go to. They mention you. Whenever we have Madden on the show, he always mentions you. Yeah. Always does. That's a special place. It is. Kitchen Arts is a special place and holds a special place in my heart. I mean, I spent every extra penny I had for the first 20 years of my life as a cook there.

41:04And more than that, you know, it's a bookstore, but they treat you like you've gone to a wonderful bespoke library. they let you they let you come in they let you sit there they let you read they ask if they can bring you books to read like they there's nowhere on earth that has that group of people that care so much about their subject and treat you person x nobody of note like my first 200 visits there i was nobody and yet i still got the same attention oh yeah you know um and so so that's that's always a special place for me. Um, but, but that being said, yeah, I mean, you know, what I, what I'm trying, you know, there's pizza books.

41:49I'm reading a lot of pizza books still, you know, I still, I think like Dan Richard's book, Joy of Pizzas is, is an amazing book. I gave it one to each of my staff. It's really, it's an awesome book. Um, I, I think that, uh, the pizza Bible is a great book that I go to Tony Gemignani's book. You know, he's, he's sort of a seminal American pizza figure. Did you consult with Tony? No, I don't think Tony knows who I am. I feel like Tony gets, he's like a whisperer. I know some folks in my life who run pizza and they talk to Tony and it's, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know Tony at all. So, but the book is great.

42:26You know, that's the problem with pizza is that there's not a lot of great academic academic books about pizza. And that might sound weird. People are like, of course, he wants an academic book, right? He's looking to take the soul out of pizza making. But there needs to be more books about what happens to pizza as it's made, because there's a lot to be learned. But, you know, there's a great book. Raymond Calville wrote a book called The Taste of bread. And it's a seminal book in terms of understanding how bread is made. And there's this ongoing argument of is pizza bread or not. And there's a lot of people that say no, but I think there's really no argument.

43:15Pizza is bread. A hundred percent. And if you go up to FNF in Carol Gardens, my old neighborhood, I mean, they think of their pie as bread. Yeah. Well, that's good pizza. That's damn good pizza. That's good pizza. Love those guys. Those guys are great. I love that place. Yeah. It's super cool. I mean, that whole run of what they've built right there. I know. I mean, is awesome. For me, it's L &B. I should have put them on the list, too. Those guys are awesome. Yeah, they are awesome. I should have. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, Frank. I love you guys. I swear. Their pies are outstanding. I think it's like, for me, it's L &B, number one, controversial take, and then F &F is number two.

43:46That's my - L &B is controversial because there are those that question the square supremacy these days. Really? So the square, we can go there. We're a little deep in this interview. I feel like it's the square, but I think it's the sauce is what people really, really have a problem with. I don't know if you have any thoughts if you've been there recently or even know it. L &B is like more of a childhood. Like, you know, like I almost don't want to go back with my critical pizza lens and have it not, you know, have it somehow not be what I remembered it, maybe remembered it as. Yeah, fair, fair, diplomatic.

44:20I appreciate that, Wiley. but as we work on a square as we work on trying to develop some grandma squares for stretch I saw a little thing at Francis's a little on a napkin I saw a little square there it wasn't on the menu I was thinking this isn't there I'm sorry I should have sent you some grandma all good grandma is and I think actually what they're doing up at FNF with their squares is pretty terrific that's and what Brooks Headley's doing with focaccia, that to me is the game. Brooks makes a really good focaccia. Yeah. A really, really, really good focaccia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, as we get back to books again, I go back and forth between, like, looking for academic stuff that can give me answers.

45:08You know, like I said, Calvo's book, Advanced Bread and Pastry, is like a huge and phone book sized, if anybody out there knows what a phone book is. No. That answer is absolutely not. Yeah. Um, that's a really, again, it's a book that's very interesting about, about bread and making bread and understanding how to mix dough. And, and so, you know, again, as we, for me, it's, there's the two parts to pizza, right? There's the, there's the dough and getting better at making the dough. And then there's the stuff on the top and when, how do we, so there are different books that I go to for the dough and there are different books that for the top.

45:43And so, you know, we're going to the top and you're looking for inspiration, all of the Otto Lange books and they're, you know, he's like a master of vegetable cookery and what, you know, flavor combinations and unusual spices and mixes and rubs. Also a master of rice. Yeah. That guy's rice recipes are the best. Yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that. So any of his books I think are great. You know, as you, like right now we're seeing a huge seasonal change. You know, the next three weeks at the market are going to be seismic in a good way. Yeah. as things begin to pop um and then we'll have a good thing and then it'll be seismic again in the fall you know and that's and that's super fun so his books are great and then you know a lot of like other creative people like the wild air guys you know their their cookbook's awesome there's they're yeah the very serious cookbook it's not serious at all but yeah those guys do a great job of taking uh like a green market approach and and applying like they're they're two guys that They're two of the most well-traveled, well-worked guys out there, period.

46:44Heart stop. So smart. Such good cooks. But they have a sense of humor. They're a lot of fun. That book's a great source of inspiration. Richard Blaze, you know, try this at home. Like, again, a really thoughtful, clever guy. We published that book, I think, like back, like, that's like 12 years old or something. That's a great book. That's good. And Richard's a really clever guy. And, again, a guy, I mean, what he's doing now with the English restaurant that he just opened out there. And I had a great meal at his steakhouse. And again, I think Richard takes has a respect for traditional cooking, but also was looking to march it forward.

47:17I mean, he probably is the current molecular gastronomy ambassador of America in many ways. Yeah. I mean, he has so much TV exposure. Yeah. He's pushing those ideas forward. But yeah, he's a face in many ways and in a good way. But I think that that book is one I go back to, like, how is Richard thinking about this or doing that in fun, approachable ways? Because, you know, I just I think those those are good, good things. I always look to my old friends in Spain. You know, I have a lot of cookbooks. I have like somewhere around 1600 cookbooks. Are they all in your home or do you have them in storage as well?

47:56I can't talk about that I don't want my wife to know where they're all there's a lot of them at home and then there are a few in storage yeah that's cool I go back to old books that I've been looking at a lot over the years and then again I'm trying to constantly find new books I'm always looking for stuff on the subject of pizza

48:20but yeah I mean I just look for like what are some creative ways to cook vegetables because that's you know what goes on the pizzas a lot and that's what's happening. Well this is those are great books and I had to ask you we're here at Penguin Random House we've published many of them here so thank you for sharing. I hope I picked some of the right ones. We asked all guests on Tate's podcast if you could write a cookbook or food culture book without the burden of time meaning you have no deadline or the burden of budget meaning you have all the money in the world to write this book. Wiley, what would that book be?

48:52This might be weird, but I do think it would be fun to do a donut book. Like we got into donuts and donuts was short-lived. And there's not a lot of information about how to make donuts out there, available. I mean, it's a professional trade. I mean, doing it at home is extreme. You can't really, it's hard to make donuts at home. I'm glad you said that. And I know that that might not be why anyone wants to publish a book about donuts, because typically if it can't be done at home, who's going to buy that cookbook? Listen, this is like all the money in the world. It doesn't matter. So I think that could be fun because, you know, I'm really proud of the cake donuts that we made at Dews.

49:36We made a solid yeast donut, but we made a, like, I'll take my donut to the state fair. A cake donut, yeah. Our cake donut to the state fair. And I felt really good about what we did there. And we did a lot of really interesting work around the glazes. I think that making a donut is a very underappreciated process because it's both pastry and candy making because you're making a cake. Yeah. And then you're glazing it and the cake is the pastry part and the glaze is a candy. and it's really, when done right, it's really hard, but it's such a simple, ubiquitous thing that people sort of take it for granted and don't, you know, don't get it.

50:21It's a great point. I have to shout out Cafe Yen up in Goshen, New York, near where I live. It is absolutely the best donut upstate. Gotta go there, yeah. Nice. Now, the other one, if I can be allowed, two book dreams. You can do two, yeah. You deserve it. You earned it. You've been a great sport on the show. Thank you. Jim Meehan, one of the great cocktail barmen of our country. Best dressed, too. Best dressed, yes. Absolutely great dresser. Sartorially correct. Yeah, yeah. And a generally super nice guy. He said to me once, he's like, when you do your WD-50 cookbook, you should make it huge, and you should actually do every dish.

51:02The book should be every dish you ever made. And I was like, that's a crazy nutty idea. and I don't even know how to go about that. But wow, that would have been kind of neat like to have done every dish. And so that always, you know, the WD-50 book is its own thing and happy with the way it came out and all that. But it always sort of stuck in my head like, wow, that kind of, again, a book that nobody needs or nobody wants. I'd have all four copies in my apartment. It would be in the Library of Congress. But there was something about that notion of like try to do every dish. I would be excited just to be able to read through it and look at, you know, where we started and where we went.

51:47Like a photo book, a scrapbook. But anyway, yeah, donuts. I love it. There's not a lot of, you know, if I had to like levy a criticism against the donut world, it's the same I would levy against the pizza world, which is there's just not a lot of academic information out there. And everybody wants it to be cheap, and that's not how it should be. Can you please come back? I would love to have you back on the show to talk about that. That's a huge topic about price of food. We'll have you back and talk about it. Everybody wanted – that was the big thing. How can you charge$3.50 for a donut? Yeah.

52:19Why is your pizza so expensive? Why is a cup of coffee$4? I mean it's like – go down the list. But it's all the things that people want to be cheap. And now they want to be good. But let's – I'll have you back. I really mean it. Thank you for joining the Taste Podcast. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

52:47Hong Kong, welcome to The Taste Podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you for coming in. You flew in last night from Seoul, and I honestly really appreciate the time. I'm such a fan of your work, of fiction, and just you as a person. I just feel like I know you just reading some of your work. So thank you. Thank you. So, Han, let's just start with what are some dishes that you like to cook at home? At home, I like to cook miso soup. In Korean, it's called denjangjigae. And I put no denjang sauce and a little bit of gochujang. It's very hot sauce. Yeah. I like it. A little bit.

53:27So mostly denjang, but a little bit of gochujang. Yeah, and the rate is like two 된jang and one gochujang. It is my recipe. It sounds like, Han, it sounds like a great, I think putting a lot of gochujang in denjang jjigae is smart. I love that. Do you put clams in it ever? No, we call it dashima. It's seaweed. Seaweed, yeah. And a bit of dried, very little shrimps. Oh, cool. Yeah, and zucchini, and if available, a bit of onions, and then that's all, and tofu. A little bit like cube, like firm tofu? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So let's go back to where you grew up, which is Gwangju, which is in Jelado, which to many Koreans and others who observe Korean food, it's considered the best food in Korea.

54:23Would you agree with this? Yes, people say Jollado, Provence, is famous for food. And no, my both parents are from Jollado and my mother is very good. It's a very good cook. So let's talk about some of the dishes growing up that your mother maybe made for you. One of my favorite dishes my mother made for me is red bean porridge. Yeah, like juke? Yeah, pachuk. We call it pachuk and it is really delicious, you know. Oh my gosh, yeah. Was this something you had in the morning for breakfast? Oh, it's kind of a special meal. So she cooked for us, especially in summer and in the afternoon. Just when we need something delicious.

55:26I love all the process she went through. I mean to finish the finished pachuk and she made a dough and then she cut the dough like spaghetti. And then she boiled red beans for a long time, maybe two hours or three hours. And all the smells, you know, and every move she made. I loved it. Yeah. This is such, it's profound that you say this about Korean home cooking. And so beautifully, what you just said is, it really strikes me how handmade a lot of the cuisine is. and how, of course, you can get kimbap delivered from other, but mostly at the root of Korean cuisine is a lot of seomat, like hand cooking.

56:25How do you describe that, this idea of cooking by hand and not by recipes, really? Really, it's a good question because I don't look for recipes usually. and I just remember and I just feel and I just follow my instinct. Yeah. Speaking of Gwangju, I really wanted to talk to you about your book, Human Acts, which to me, it's one of my, it really struck me the most out of all of your books and I've read many of them. It centers around the May 18th massacre in Gwangju and I think a lot of Americans and listeners of the show maybe aren't familiar with what happened in Gwangju in 1980. Tell us a little bit about what happened then and how your book Human Acts tackles this event.

57:14In 1980, in May, martial law declared by the new military forces. And there was a very strong protest in Gwangju, which is my hometown. And yeah, there was a massacre. And after that, there was a civilian autonomy for 10 days. And then the troops came back to kill the people. Mostly students, young protesters, which is important in that your book, Human Acts, goes inside the heads of many of these protesters. And they're very young, many of them. They were very young and they were mostly university students or high school or middle school students. And the young people who were high school teachers and some staffs of the bookstores And these kind of very kind people were there to protect, you know, the citizens of Guangzhou.

58:33And particularly in armory, there was a central structure that was kind of important in your book. Yeah. And actually, I wasn't there because I moved to Seoul with my family four months before the incident. Yeah. So I just learned from what my family talked. Mm-hmm. You know, they whispered because, you know, it was not allowed to talk about it for a long time. When you get into that, in that human acts unfolds the narrative into the present time. So it does travel over time, which is remarkable. And just to close on the Guangzhou massacre, I wonder, what would you like our audience to know about those who died during that massacre?

59:25I learned the truth when I was 12, when I found out the photo book my father brought from Gwangju. And the book was circulated secretly to testify the truth. So from then, it was kind of staying inside my nightmares. Oh my. For a long time. And it was like very, very difficult questions staying with me. like there were people who killed other people in such a brutal way and there were people as well who acted in such a dignified way so it was like a very difficult riddle about human beings so when I was writing about the boy his name is Dongho who was killed when he was 15 years old and I wanted to feel the way he felt at the time why he stayed And though he knew he might die if he stayed, just I wanted to know and I wanted to feel his inside.

1:01:12And I read the journal of the night teacher who was killed that night when the troops came back. It was the 27th of May. and he was wondering about the possibility he could survive and he knew he might die and he wanted to live on and there was a struggle in him. So I could understand what Dongho, this boy, felt that night And I wanted to approach that moment of his decision. And it is really tragic, but I wanted to reach that part of human beings. In the journal of that night school teacher, he was talking about conscience. No, he was suffering with the existence of the conscience, which tortured him at the moment.

1:02:36Wow, it sounds like, I mean, beautiful writing in a journal during this. I mean, this sounds like really poetic. It was like his last journal. So I wanted to reach that part of human beings, even though I started with the brutality of human beings. It's very universal, I think. It's all over the world and it's all over the history of human beings. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Han. I really appreciate that, the way you've articulated this and just the polarity of human condition, you know, such brutality and such bravery and dignity in the same incident. And just for a little more historical context, many of the protesters were unarmed or were using guns without ammunition.

1:03:25So really they knew when they were protecting the armory, they were, they, it was almost a sacrifice. They were sacrificing themselves to symbolically protect their city from these, the militia from this martial law. Let's switch gears to the vegetarian. The book is certainly not about a diet, but it grabs our attention right away how food plays a role in the book. Can you articulate how you think about food in this book and how food, the restraint, how changing of diet leads to a greater understanding of humanity? I feel that's what is happening in one way in this book. Young Hye, the protagonist of the book, doesn't want to eat meat any longer because she doesn't want to harm anything or harm anyone.

1:04:22And in the end, she refuses to eat anything but water and she doesn't want to belong to human race any longer. she believes she is becoming a plant and you know it's not because she wants to die it's because she wants to live on and it's the way of saving herself but ironically in this way she is approaching her death so food is uh is complex in this novel absolutely and i think the initial response i think it was her husband when she's decided to not eat meat there's real resistance right from from that character yeah and no there is a line in the first section uh which is told by young as mother she says I don't remember the exact line but if you refuse to eat meat the world will eat you that was the line and so in this section or in this book eating meat is talking about violence which is omnipresent in the world.

1:06:00Yeah, I mean, and you've covered some of the main plot points, but it doesn't mean anything about giving away this book because the way you write, the way you capture human emotion without dramatic plot swings is a real art. And really, I think fans of your work realize this and how this idea of not eating meat and then eventually transforming into a plant, you have to read the book. to actually understand how we get to these points. You are a one of one. You are unique. Let's talk about Buddhist temple cuisine. You moved north of Seoul and there's temples all in the area where you moved to and lived there.

1:06:41There's beautiful temples and I've been up there and walked around a lot. Do you connect with Buddhist temple cuisine? I ask because in America, one of the most famous Korean chefs is a Buddhist monk, Jung Kwan. We know her. We think of Korean food as Buddhist temple cuisine now. It's fascinating. What do you think about this cuisine? Have you tasted her? I have. In New York, I've had her food in New York. Absolutely, I've met her a couple times. But I've also been in Jelado. I stayed at a monastery, at a temple, and worked with some chefs and got to wake up at four in the morning and cook with them.

1:07:23and it's in our book Korea World that we have a whole section about Buddhist temple cuisine. And I just wanted to get your sense. I know there's a reference in Greek lessons to temple cuisine. So I wanted to get your take on that. Actually, I love Buddhist temple cuisine. And whenever I visit Buddhist temples, it's a really nice moment to taste. Their meal is really gentle. They don't use many kinds of spices. And everything is so nice. I grew up in a family which is rooted in Buddhism deeply. I'm not religious, but I visit Buddhist temples sometimes. And I wrote about the most visibly beautiful experiences in Greek lessons.

1:08:38In May there is Buddha's birthday. So I visit Buddhist temples every Buddha's birthday and it is like too beautiful. And sometimes I ask myself, how many times will I see this beauty in my life? You can count the number. So that is very precious, precious moments in my life to visit Buddhist temples every Buddha's birthday. Thank you for sharing that. I am not Buddhist myself. Either, but I've spent time throughout the country and I disagree with you. There's a lot of beauty when you're visiting these manicured gardens and seeing the Buddhas. But when you enter the kitchen and when you get – it's nothing like it.

1:09:41Absolutely the presentation but also the connection, right, between the religion and food is really strong because, you know, no animals are harmed in the creation of the dishes. But as somebody who tastes the cuisine, it's nothing more delicious than in Korea. I mean, it's beautiful. I remember when I was in 20s, it was kind of a practice to live like a Buddhist nun. And it was for five days. And I woke up in the morning at three. Yeah, I did everything. Buddhist nuns did and yeah I enjoyed the food and there is a ritual before you eat meals you know you remember yeah there's some meditation going on at the table yeah yeah and you you promise to yourself to appreciate the meal which came from the nature yeah the temple stays are amazing and i highly recommend anyone who's visiting korea to i'll link to in the show notes a link to where you can get more information but they're throughout the country they're very affordable and you can stay up to five days that's a long time to be waking up at three and eating and And really, there's no waste either.

1:11:14That's the other part about the meal is you eat everything on your plate and leave an empty bowl. It's still my habit after the Temple's Day. I don't make leftover when I eat. You eat everything. Yeah. I have a last couple of questions. And I wonder, I know the white book is autobiographical, but have you thought about writing nonfiction? Have you tackled any projects that would be more reported? I know for Human Acts, you're reading the journals and you're doing research. And I wonder if that's something in your future. I have already a collection of my prose. and one day I would like to write some essays about gardening or walks in the forest one day but before then I have to finish the novels which I have thought for some years So I have to catch up all I want to write.

1:12:27And the problem is my writing speed. It's always, you know, takes time. So yeah, but one day I will write. A gardening nonfiction piece. I imagine you have a garden that you've recently planted. It's being spring now. What are you growing right now? Lilac. Yeah. Wow. And bultuha. It is the very beautiful big white flowers And I left the flowers in my garden yesterday Yeah It was really just blooming Blooming And you'll be back soon to see them bloom You don't want to miss out on that So it's a floral garden You grow flowers mostly Yes I love that It's beautiful Hong Kong, thank you so much for joining the Taste Podcast Thank you

1:13:20The Taste Podcast is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.