(*NEW ARRIVAL*) (Korean) Wookwan. Wookwan's Korean Temple Food: The Road to the Taste of Enlightenment

Illus. with photographs. Pictorial boards. First Edition. Seoul: ICP, [2018].

As the first volume of temple cuisine published in English, Wookwan herself has written an elegant volume that introduces the reader to Korean temple food, including what it means to care for the ingredients at each step of preparation, following the three key principles of cooking temple food, interspersed with her own accounts and tips among the recipes.

Korean temple food has been practicing what we now call the farm-to-table concept, using ingredients that are only homegrown or naturally cultivated, combined with an eco-friendly, clean eating mindfulness with a history of over 1700 years. It is also vegetarian cuisine; it does not use any animal products save for some dairy ingredients, nor does it use the five spicy vegetables that are thought to distract the mind; instead, flavors are precisely crafted by thorough understanding of the ingredients and their natural aromas.

Temple cuisine holds at its very core a reverence for life, and Wookwan's 41 meticulous recipes embody her philosophy and conscientiousness for nourishing the not only the body, but the soul. Fine.