15 minutes to change the world
An Innovative Way to Change the World with Vegetables
Albert Park, Sempio Foods
Fermentation Research Center
I'm Albert Park from Sempio Foods Co
Do you know what the most trending keyword these days in the culinary space is?
It is the word 'Flexitarian'
Last year I was invited to Google to talk about food
Talking to the people there, I found that
a lot of people identified themselves as flexitarian
What is a 'Flexitarian'?
Flexible
Flexible + vegetarian
It means a flexible vegetarian
So it means primarily eating plant based food,
but at times you may consume a little meat
So in addition to 'vegan' and 'vegetarian' 
we are seeing new words such as flexitarian
As you can see, 
the current trend in food is plant forward diets
When we think of eating a vegetable diet
what are the reasons?
Health and animal rights are some of the main reasons
But, the actual reason we have so many new flexitarians
is because of the environment
The food we eat has a huge impact on the environment,
especially if we consume beef
To get beef, we need to raise cows
Then what does that cow do while it is being raised?
Yes, it farts, and burps
The cow expels methane gas into the atmosphere
Methane gas is a very toxic greenhouse gas, 
much more than carbon dioxide
Normally, when we think of greenhouse gases,
we usually think of exhaust fumes
coming from cars and trucks
but in reality, there are more greenhouse gas emissions coming from livestock
They are polluting the environment
In addition to this
cows need a lot of water to drink
We also need to grow their feed
To grow all that feed, we need a lot of land
and to get land, what do we do?
We cut down trees
Because of these effects,
this problem is seriously contributing to environmental damage,
and people who do not want to contribute to this damage are thinking
"I should eat less beef"
Of course, not eating beef at all would be best,
but since that is quite difficult, I'll try too eat a more plant forward diet
And so they are becoming flexitarians
But is there this sort of trend in Korea?
Maybe a little bit,
but none of my friends or people I know are vegetarians
The interesting thing is, despite this
is that of all the OECD countries
the country which has the highest daily vegetable consumption rate
is Korea.
Why is that?
Koreans are not trying to become vegetarians
The reason is actually quite simple
Koreans know how to make vegetables delicious
So, how do we actually make vegetarian dishes delicious?
Yes, kimchi, that's one way
To solve the mystery
we need to look at the Korean 'bab-sang' (table).
In the Korean 'bab-sang', there is a bowl of rice, soup and various 'ban-chan' (side dishes)
The 'ban-chan' (side dishes) use 'namul' (seasoned vegetables) and all types of vegetables
70% of Korean 'ban-chan' are vegetarian
If you eat those 'namul' or vegetables raw, they don't taste too good
They are very bitter
If you eat spinach raw with no seasoning,
it's not too tasty
But there is a way we make it delicious
What is it?
The secret is 'fermentation'
Whether we eat kimchi, or eat 'namul',
we use fermentation
There are two types of fermentation
used in the Korean 'bab-sang'
One is 'Kimchi' and the other is 'Jang'
'Kimchi' is when you ferment vegetables directly
When you ferment cabbage, you get cabbage kimchi
but if you ferment radishes, then you get radish kimchi
cucumbers for cucumber kimchi
We ferment all types of vegetables to get kimchi
We also eat mustard kimchi, young radish kimchi, scallion kimchi, all types of kimchi
We take vegetables that are hard to eat raw
and use fermentation to make them
into kimchi and make them delicious
The other type of fermentation we use is 'Jang'
What is 'Jang'?
Jang is made by fermenting soybeans with water, salt
If you take the liquid part of 'Jang',
you get 'gan-jang' (soysauce),
if you take the solid part you get
'dwen-jang' (soy paste)
and if you use red pepper flakes, and ferment that 
you get 'go-chu-jang'
So what is the role of 'Jang'?
Yes, it is 'taste'
What 'Jang' does is it removes unwanted tastes,
such as bitter tastes
or fishy and gamey tastes,
and adds a fuller, deeper taste
That is how we use 'Jang' to create delicious dishes
We use 'Jang' in with all types of ingredients
and with all types of cooking methods
As you can see, if we are doing 'jjang-a-chi',
we pickle in 'gan-jang'
If we are boiling a soup,
we use 'gan-jang' or 'dwen-jang'
If we are making 'kal-bi' or cooking roasted 'duh-duk'
before we actually start cooking
we make a sauce using 'gan-jang' or 'go-chu-jang'
and marinate the ingredients in it
As for 'na-mul', since the wild greens,
stems and roots are hard to eat raw
we season them,
and to season them, we use 'gan-jang' or 'dwen-jang'
making them delicious
In fact, even when we decide to eat vegetables raw
such as cucumbers or carrot sticks
we mix 'dwen-jang' and 'go-chu-jang'
to make 'ssam-jang'
which we use as a dip
As you can see, 'Jang'
is an essential part of all Korean cooking
And by using 'Jang'
we make our dishes enjoyably delicious
Now, if we take this essential 'Jang'
and give it to Western people
who are trying to eat more vegetables
what would happen?
Would they be able to use it well?
Unfortunately not, as you already know
It would be great if this would happen, but...
well, I used to live in the US when I was little
One day I was outside playing
with my American friends
And my friends' mothers were standing nearby
and they suddenly said 'I can smell a skunk.
There must be a skunk nearby'
So I smelled the air,
but couldn't smell anything
'That's strange', I thought.
But they said it definitely must be a skunk
So I took another deep breath
'My mom must be cooking seaweed soup'
'I can smell it coming from our house'
were the thoughts
that went through my mind
A skunk. You know Westerners aren't really fond of the smell of skunks, right?
They really don't like the smell
When we cook seaweed soup,
we use 'cho-sun gan-jang'
There is a bit of an odorous smell,
but because we are so used to it,
we don't really perceive it
But Westerners don't like the smell.
It's bad to them
That is why they cannot just use our 'Jang' as is.
There is another problem
Korean 'Jang' is very dark in color
If I am a Westerner wanting to
make a pasta or a risotto
and I poured 'gan-jang' into it,
what will happen?
The color would look awful
It wouldn't look like something you want to eat
So color is also a problem
Our traditional 'Jang' has these various limitations
Since we are people who research 'Jang'
we started to think, 'how can we make Jang so people all over the world can also enjoy it?'
As we were pondering...hmmm
Think about it.
Has anyone here actually made 'Jang'?
Nobody. How about anybody who has watched their mother make 'Jang'? OK, we have a few.
Now imagine you are making 'Jang',
and someone comes and
asks you to make a 'Jang'
with no color the next time
Yes, it sounds very difficult
What if they also say in addition to the color,
please get rid of the odorous smell
Even more crazy.
It sounds pretty absurd
Our researchers also had the same reaction.
They said it was impossible
But they still tried to figure it out.
'How can we get this done?'
At first they thought about trying to
remove some of the color from traditional 'Jang'
or trying to remove some of the smell,
but that wouldn't really work
So they switched course,
and decided to create a totally new 'Jang'
So how do you make a totally new 'Jang'?
First, we need to know what 'Jang' is
'Jang' is the fermentation of soybeans
To make a new type of 'Jang'
you need to understand fermentation
Fermentation is the process of microorganisms
creating metabolites, enzymes, etc
which break down the proteins in the soybean
This creates new substances
which determine the taste and smell
They also decide the color
So we decided to do research on these factors
Our research looked into what types of substances are derived, depending on what microorganisms we use,
and what those substances do,
and what type of smells they create, etc
To do this research,
we built a new fermentation research lab
bought the necessary equipment, such as
analyzing machines, experiment supplies, etc
and started doing research
It wasn't an easy research topic
I get this question a lot:
'Isn't making 'Jang' just taking soybeans,
add some salt water, and waiting for it to ferment?
Why do you need a research lab?'
Our research lab is quite large
The reason we need such a large research lab is because
we need to look at microorganisms, enzymes, metabolites and various other substances
We spent a long time, over 10 years, doing extensive research on fermentation
And through this effort, we succeeded in creating a totally new type of 'Jang' that everyone can enjoy
What is this new 'Jang'?
We call this new Jang
'Yondu'
So we finally succeeded in developing 'Yondu'
for Westerners to enjoy
of course we should enjoy it too,
so we went to the Alicia Foundation in Spain
which was founded by Ferran Adrià
who was the chef and owner of El Bulli, and known by some as the best chef in the world,
as a culinary research center
So we went to Alicia
and started a research project together
The research topic was to find ways in which
Western cuisine can make use of this new jang, 'Yondu'
When we started this research
there were a lot of interesting events
We introduced this new jang  as 'Jang Sauce'
Before a week had passed,
the Alicia researchers were carrying 'Yondu' around
and calling it
'magic sauce', 'magic sauce'
At lunch time, some of the researchers 
were taking the samples outside
Those are research samples,
so we followed them
and found them pouring 'Yondu'
on their lunches
They were pouring it on their salads
and really enjoying their lunches
Usually, when you do this kind of research,
you cook, you taste,
you cook, you taste all day long
and normally you get sick of
tasting the item you are researching
You don't want to taste it again
But these guys were taking it outside
and having even more
So we got curious
and looked into this a bit more
and found that 'Yondu'
was doing the role of 'Jang'
getting rid of the unwanted smells and tastes, and adding fullness and depth
but our traditional 'Jang' had it's own taste
'gan-jang', 'dwen-jang' all have their own taste
But 'Yondu' does not have it's own taste
Because of this,
it brings out the taste of the original ingredient
They used the expression
'It brings to life the taste of the ingredient'
At the end of our research project,
we drew up a concept map
What this concept map shows is
what type of ingredients pair well with 'Yondu',
and for each ingredient, what type of cooking method works well for Western cuisine
An interesting thing to note is that the bottom side is very green
The greens are vegetarian cuisine
As you can see,
'Yondu' goes very well with vegetarian cuisine
For the next step, we took 'Yondu' to various famous chefs around the world
Belgium, France, Spain, Brazil, United States etc.
and explained about 'Jang' and 'Yondu'
and got their feedback
You can see it on screen
'Jang' is used as a seasoning or sauce
It makes the taste come together and makes it richer
and makes true taste of the ingredients come to life
Even if it is your first time seeing 'Yondu'
you can use it the next day. It is very easy to use
I am going to study Korean fermentation
Korean fermentation is going to
leave a mark in culinary history
As you can see,
'Yondu' is something you can use right away,
even for Western people
and you can see their new found interest in 'Jang'
So we introduced 'Yondu'
to top chefs around the world
and they are already have
very high regards for 'Yondu'
There are various Michelin 2-star and 3-star  restaurants
which are using 'Yondu' in their kitchens
'Yondu' is already known in some of these places
Through the plant-based food trend,
Korean food culture is being recognized worldwide
The reason this was possible is because
instead of just focusing on our traditional 'Jang',
like 'gan-jang', 'dwen-jang' and 'go-chu-jang',
we decided to take a new approach to the problem
and make a totally new 'Jang'
and we were persistent in our research
As a result, we were able to
successfully make a 'Yondu',
a new Jang which can be enjoyed
by both Westerners as well as ourselves
with a bright color tone
and without any overpowering odor or taste
Because we are researchers of 'Jang',
fermentation and food,
we were able to bring innovation to this area
but for any innovation,
I believe the principles are the same
Breaking out of a fixed way of thinking,
the current way of thinking
and approaching from a new perspective, 
with a passion for change,
brings about innovation
If you add your culture and your technology to this innovation,
it can be an innovation for the world
Though we have already created a new type of 'Jang',
we are going to keep moving forward finding and creating more innovative new types of 'Jang'
Thank you
