Chapter 2

“I’m going out for some fresh air.”

With his head feeling heavy, Eden left the restaurant. He then drove for a long time without even using his navigation system.

Seoul, the city he’d left behind as a child, was far bigger and more bustling than he remembered. His car traveled along roads that felt both familiar and strange before finally stopping in a narrow alley in Anguk-dong.

It was the one place amid Seoul’s forest of skyscrapers where time seemed to have stood still. Everywhere he looked, he found the unmistakable charm of traditional Korea.

He tossed aside his jacket and walked down the street in nothing but his shirt.

“Oh my, aren’t you Chef Han?”

Someone called out to him. It was a middle-aged woman sweeping the front of an old-fashioned hanok rice cake café. Eden furrowed his brows, searching his memory. Her face looked familiar, but where had he seen her before?

“It’s me. Oh, the representative of Ijobyeongga.”
“Ah.”

He remembered.

Last winter, Chairman Jang Gwan-cheol had dragged him to a dinner, insisting that he needed to understand the roots of Korean gastronomy. The gathering had included members of a group known as the ‘Descendants of the Royal Kitchens,’ a name given to those who held considerable sway over the areas around Insadong.

The areas around Insadong and Nakwon-dong were home to many long-established eateries founded by court ladies who had left the royal kitchens after leaving the palace. Their treasured recipes, practically national treasures in their own right, had been passed down from one generation to the next.

Among them were inheritors of royal court cuisine, masters of traditional liquor, a family of meat specialists who had supplied meat to Confucian scholars at Sungkyunkwan,¹ and even the representative of Ijobyeongga, whose family had preserved the recipes for special delicacies once made in the Royal Palace’s Confectionery Kitchen.

Their very existence embodied tradition and the roots of Korean gastronomy. But back then, Eden had been so displeased at being put on display like one of Chairman Jang’s trophies that he’d merely given them a curt nod before leaving.

“It’s been a while since we last met. What brings you here?”
“Oh, I was just passing through.”
“Well, what a coincidence! I’ve just made some fresh bukkumi (pan-fried rice cakes made with glutinous rice flour and filled with sweet ingredients). Why don’t you have a cup of tea before you go? You’re Chairman Jang’s number-one treasure. He’d be disappointed if I just let you leave.”

Eden wasn’t in the mood to sit around leisurely enjoying refreshments, so he politely declined. But the affable representative of Ijobyeongga gave him a gentle push on the back, steering him inside.

Before he knew it, he’d stepped into the shop, where the rich aroma of toasted oil mingled with the subtle scent of cinnamon.

A little while later, Representative Oh brought out a traditional tea table laden with refreshments.

“Go on, have a taste. These are made using a secret recipe passed down from my great-grandmother, who served as a court lady in the Saenggwabang.”

Eden nodded absentmindedly and reached for his teacup.

Then—

“……!”

He barely noticed the bukkumi made with glutinous rice flour topped with a single violet blossom, delicately blooming in the late spring. Nor did he pay any attention to the glossy kumquat candied in syrup, which gleamed like colored beads, or the pine nut confections rolled in finely minced jujubes and yellow pine nuts.

Instead, his eyes were drawn to the modest plate beneath them.

It was a simple yet elegant, milky-white porcelain plate. It had no elaborate decorations whatsoever. Its only distinctive feature was the rim, which curved gently downward like the opening petals of a flower.

The afternoon sunlight filtered through the traditional paper windows and fell upon the edge of the plate. The glaze had been applied thinly, creating an intriguing harmony between its slightly rough texture and translucent sheen.

Most remarkable of all was its shape. It supported the elaborate royal court confections with a solid, understated presence without overpowering them.

“This….”

As if under a spell, Eden’s fingertips traced the edge of the plate.

It was sturdy and warm. Its gentle curves, as subtle as a tranquil sea, pressed reassuringly against his fingertips.

A thrill unlike anything he’d ever experienced in the stainless-steel kitchen in New York or at the marble tables in Hannam-dong ran through him.

He’d found it.

The final piece of the puzzle he’d been searching for so desperately—the one that would complete his cooking.

“Where is this dish from?”

Eden asked, his eyes gleaming. Representative Oh blinked, apparently startled by his sudden intensity.

“Oh, this plate? It’s a little old-fashioned, isn’t it? We have specific places we get everything from, whether it’s our rice flour or our dishes. It’s been that way for generations, ever since my great-grandmother’s time.”
“Where?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking where this was made.”

Faced with Eden’s blunt question, Representative Oh answered before she could even think it through.

“It’s called Cheongso-yo. It’s in Deokcheon, South Chungcheong Province, on Mount Worak….”
“Cheongso-yo.”

Eden stood up without touching a single item on the tea table. He opened the map app on his phone and handed it to Representative Oh.

“Please enter the address.”
“What? You’re going there now? They don’t just meet with anyone….”
“That doesn’t matter.”

Han Eden was the kind of man who was prepared to make a deal with the devil himself if that was what it took to get what he wanted.

Watching Representative Oh of Ijobyeongga reluctantly take his phone, Eden let out a confident smile.

Late-spring sunlight poured down along the ridges of Mount Worak. It was the season when fresh green leaves grew thicker across the mountain slopes and the breeze carried the fragrance of acacia blossoms. They said the spring winds of the fifth and sixth lunar months could soften even a stone Buddha’s heart, but for Hwang Ja-yeong, the owner of Cheongso-yo, May wasn’t exactly a romantic time of year.

“They said the rainy season would come early this year, and it’s already so humid.”

Ja-yeong wiped the sweat from her forehead with the towel wrapped around her neck. On days when she had to fire pottery for the first time, she was especially restless. There was simply too much to worry about. She couldn’t misjudge the sunlight or the wind, and she couldn’t overlook the moisture absorbed by the kiln or the pottery.

Unlike her grandfather, who could read a fire with his eyes closed, Ja-yeong was still a novice potter who had to face a collapsed kiln about once every ten firings.

After working for what felt like ages, sweating profusely all the while, she finally saw flames, brighter and sharper than the midsummer sun, bursting out through the kiln’s vent holes.

Only then did Ja-yeong sit on a pile of firewood and catch her breath.

Just then, the phone in her pocket began ringing noisily. It was Representative Oh from Ijobyeongga, one of Cheongso-yo’s longtime business partners.

“Yes, Representative. The footed plates won’t be ready for another two weeks—”
“Ja-yeong, what am I supposed to do? Someone’s on their way to your place right now.”

Representative Oh’s voice sounded rather troubled over the phone.

“Who? The delivery driver already came by earlier.”
“No, not the delivery guy. You know Chairman Jang Gwan-cheol, right? He’s a regular at our shop, a big shot in the food service industry.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve seen him on the news.”
“Well, there’s this chef he went to great lengths to bring over from America. He just came to our shop, saw your dishes, and practically lost his mind. He made such a fuss about getting your address that I ended up giving it to him….”

Ja-yeong casually wiped the bead of sweat gathering beneath her nose with the back of her hand.

“A chef? A cook is coming all the way here? Because of a dish?”
“Maybe it’s because he made it big at such a young age… Anyway, that man is something else. Apparently, he even appeared on American television when he was in New York. The way he glares at you, you’d think he was about to devour you alive. I nearly wet myself. And I’ve dealt with all kinds of people in my time.”

Representative Oh continued at length, punctuating her words with sighs. She was probably just embarrassed about the whole situation. Ja-yeong’s grandfather had a temperament that made him immediately reject anyone who wasn’t a longtime business partner with whom he’d maintained a relationship across generations.

“Chairman Jang cherishes that man like he’s a national treasure, so don’t turn him away at the door. Just give him a cup of tea and send him on his way. Who knows? With Chairman Jang’s connections, maybe your pottery will make its way to Hannam-dong² in Seoul.”

Ja-yeong chuckled.

“Hannam-dong, my foot. Anyway, I understand. I’ll at least give him a glass of cold water if he shows up.”

After hanging up, Ja-yeong gazed up at the sky without much interest.

A chef, huh?

She pictured the cooks she saw on television, dressed in white uniforms. They worked their knives with flair beneath dazzling lights and arranged food on pretty plates.

Did they know? That to make even one of those beautiful plates, potters had to sweat just as much as they did and battle the scorching flames in front of them?

After checking that the color of the flames had changed, Ja-yeong picked up another piece of firewood.

Following the slope of the kiln yard, the traditional Korean wood-fired kiln stretched out like a silkworm. It had stood here for 270 years. Though it looked crude, it was a seasoned old structure that had remained in operation since the Korean War.

Her grandfather was the fifth-generation master ceramic artisan designated as an Intangible Cultural Heritage holder. His granddaughter, Hwang Ja-yeong, was the seventh generation. The blood of potters ran deep halfway up Mount Worak.

Everything was done the old-fashioned way, just as it had always been.

They used a traditional Korean wood-fired kiln instead of a gas kiln, and they insisted on burning only red pine, dried carefully for a hundred days.

The world was full of modern pottery studios that used all kinds of colorful glazes and fired their kilns every other day.

Was there any reason for a chef who’d spent time in America to seek out an old-fashioned pottery workshop that made nothing but white porcelain all year round and barely fired its kiln once every two months?

“Well, he’s coming as a customer, so there’s no reason to turn him away. No matter how closed-off Cheongso-yo may be, we’re not a place that doesn’t understand basic manners.”

At least, that was how Ja-yeong felt before the man showed up.

With an indifferent expression, she fed another piece of firewood into the kiln.