Press: From Farm to Market: Culinary Tour Offers a Return to Basics

The last few months have been very busy for my company. Our last project was to design culinary tours in Korea for tourist coming to Seoul for Korea Tourism Organization. I was lucky to be able to invite press for one of our tours so we brought in Chandra Ram from Plate Magazine, Brian Lio from Jetsetzero, Benjamin Jackson from Seoul Magazine and Yonhap News, and Cho Jae-un from the Joongahn-ilbo newspaper. We were so lucky get such a talented group of people together and I think they enjoyed themselves. Here are two articles written by Jae-un Cho from the Joongahn-ilbo Newspaper.

Thank you so much Jae-un!

Dan

From farm to market, culinary tour offers a return to the basics

‘This is the real Korea that foreigners often don’t get to experience.’ -Daniel Gray

December 11, 2010


	Blocks of meju (dried fermented soybeans) hang at Jeolgol Farm By Cho Jae-eun

YANGPYEONG, Gyeonggi – A glop of freshly cooked soybeans turned into perfect, golden squares of meju (dried fermented soybeans) as soon as Lee Bong-soon’s skilled hands got a hold of them.

The 86-year-old showed foreign journalists visiting her bean and jang (Korean sauce) farm how it was really done. “Don’t just massage the beans – firm them up!” she said, as her tone quickly changed from that of a friendly, next-door grandma to a stern teacher.

Lee has been making jang for more than 60 years at Jeolgol Farm, a remote bean farm in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi. Along with the farm’s lucrative jang business – its organic sauces are now sold in such high-end venues as Shinsegae Department Store – it also holds farm tours, complete with nearby lodging.

“This is the real Korea that foreigners often don’t get to experience,” said Daniel Gray, chief of marketing and tours at O’ngo Food Communications. The company offers Korean culinary tours and cooking classes for foreigners.

Gray led a group of food and leisure journalists on a culinary journey around Yangpyeong and Chuncheon, Gangwon, featuring soybean paste, Chuncheon’s famous dakgalbi (pan-fried chicken ribs) and high-end Korean cuisine by chef Im Ji-ho of Sandang restaurant. The tour was sponsored by the Korea Tourism Organization and organized by O’ngo Food.

Go here to read the rest
Here is her other article on our Night Dining Tour

Come take a cooking class or take a Culinary Tour in Seoul! http://www.ongofood.com
Pictures are taken either with my Panasonic DMC-G2 Camera with 20mm Lens or with my iPhone 4G

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About the Author

Daniel

Daniel Gray is a Korean adoptee that returned to Korean in 2005 because he wanted to try and find his birth mother and to learn about Korean culture. He started a restaurant review blog in 2007, www.seouleats.com, that became a local and international hit. He and his blog has been featured in the New York Times, Monocle Magazine, The Kimchi Chronicles, Bizarre Foods, Rudy Maxa, Olive Magazine, Euronews and much more. He now is a partner at O’ngo Food Communications (www.ongofood.com), which is a culinary tourism and consulting company that offers Korean cooking classes and restaurant tours to travelers. Their food tours and cooking classes are ranked as one of the top attractions in Seoul according to tripadvisor. Daniel can be found at the links below or at Google+.