Calling all Vegetable-barbarians...I mean Vegetarians (or Vegans)


Hiya Vegetarians and Vegans,

I recently got an e-mail from an Ethnographer that is passing through Korea and they would like to do a study of vegetarian lifestyles in Asia. She'll be here for two weeks doing research and eating some vegetarian food. Here is the information she sent me and the requirements of the type of people she would like to interview. Her contact information is below as well.

Cheers,

Dan

Hello. My name is Rebecca Allen and I’m an ethnographer based in Yokohama, Japan. I am currently conducting an ethnographic study on vegetarian lifestyles in Asia and will be in Seoul for two weeks starting this Friday, during which time I am hoping to learn a bit about Korean vegetarian food.




The second thing is that I’m looking for 1 or 2 Korean vegetarian cooks to interview whilst I am there. From my research I know that Korea has a rich tradition of temple cuisine and I am very much interested in potentially including somebody who cooks this type of food on a daily basis, but if my theory is correct there should also be some other ‘normal’ people running around who don’t eat meat – either for religious or health reasons. I’m looking for people who are a bit better than your average home cook – someone semi-professional or at least an avid food lover would be ideal. I know it might be a long shot, but if you think you might know somebody I’d be ever so grateful if you could put us in touch!
Looking forward to hearing from you.

TYPOLOGY SPECIFICATION
l  Over 35 yrs age (ie, lots of cooking experience)
l  Native Korean, raised in Korea
l  Vegetarian – that means no animals in the diet, including fish
l  Love to cook and are great cooks – ideally they will have published a cookbook, give cooking lessons, run a popular blog or at least be self confessed food obsessors
l  Cook at home at least 4 nights per week
l  Cook for at least one other person other than self (eg, husband, children, etc.)
l  Cook mainly Korean style foods
l  Do not use MSG or many processed foods – keep to mainly natural, traditional style ingredients
l  Have a strong health focus – little reliance on heavy oils, fats, etc – they might even be into organics
l  Don’t rely heavily on cookbooks – can cook confidently and independently
l  Like to talk, have an open personality, happy to share life story, food philosophy, recipes, etc.




You can e-mail her at rebecca at frontierjapan dot com

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