Jesa Food Now Comes Store-Bought

As more households buy chesa (ancestral table) food rather than making it themselves, the perception of Jesa-food catering is gradually shifting to a positive one.

In the past, the prevailing negative view held that offering food bought from a store to parents or ancestors showed a lack of sincerity, but this view is now widely accepted.

A Jesa-food catering firm in Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do, produces more than 160 pieces of dongtae-jeon (pollock fritters) a day, equal to 16 whole pollock.

They remove the bones and drain the moisture thoroughly to preserve a chewy texture, and coat the fish in flour just before frying to make thin, tender fritters.

They use a dedicated marinade blending soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, soju and guk-ganjang (soup soy sauce), and stick to the traditional whole-body jeon shape. According to industry insiders, very few shops have the skill to achieve such a precise form.

Few restaurants hold to the whole-body jeon method with a dedicated marinade of soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, soju and guk-ganjang.

Handmade dongrangttaeng (meat-and-vegetable patties) are made by boiling squid ears and legs and mixing them with vegetables into a batter.

Unlike the hand-shaped method used when making small batches at home, they developed a process of rolling the mixture into a sausage shape, freezing it, and slicing it, securing both work efficiency and uniform shape for mass production.

Doraji (bellflower root) is soaked in sugar water to remove its bitterness and preserve its texture, while chwinamul (aster greens) must be boiled thoroughly for a tender bite.

For all namul, the key to avoiding spoilage and keeping freshness is to cool them completely before packaging.

Small tables hold five, medium seven, and large nine.

Meanwhile, Jesa-food catering firms put many times more effort into preparing food than a typical home kitchen does.

Just before the holiday, workloads grow to ten times normal levels, with rice soaked for more than four hours from the day before.

Rice, the base of holiday food, must be soaked for over four hours from the previous day to make good-quality rice cakes.

Mills begin making songpyeon (half-moon rice cakes) a month before Chuseok to handle the large volume.

To secure stock for sale on Chuseok day, freshly made songpyeon are not steamed but sent straight to the freezer. The firm explains that rapid freezing is essential to fully preserve the flavor.

Songpyeon stored this way are used as Chuseok-day stock and keep their flavor intact.

Using a boiler to create the right environment helps the tteok-bit (rice coating) adhere, which is central to the process.

High humidity requires adjusting the temperature with a boiler when coating with tteok-bit, and the work becomes harder as the confections can turn soggy.

Packaging hangwa takes up as much as 50% of the entire process in time.

Yugwa break easily, so the work must be done by hand rather than by machine, which makes packaging one of the longest steps.

Delicate finishing such as wrapping gift sets in bojagi (wrapping cloth) is essential, so manual work accounts for a very large share.

This technique, developed through years of research, is the firm's trade secret, and they continue to develop new forms of yakgwa to suit consumer tastes.

Right beside the tosi-sal (a beef cut) is the ansang-sal, and without specialized butchery skills the two cuts are hard to separate. The rarity is high: it's difficult to obtain more than 1 kg from a single cow.

Right beside tosi-sal lies ansang-sal, and without expertise these cuts cannot be butchered.

The ideal thickness of meat for grilling is between 1 cm and 1.2 cm.

To maintain freshness, trimming must be completed within two and a half hours before vacuum packaging.

The more force the knife work requires, the greater the risk of accidents.

Butchers regard the scars on their bodies as badges of honor, and even amid the grueling work of trimming about 4,200 kg of beef a day, they make safety their top priority.