Can you see them?
Yes, those are jangdok.
Jangdok are the earthenware jars Koreans use to ferment and store jang, the soybean-based sauces and pastes at the heart of Korean cooking. The Joseon royal court kept a separate storehouse for jang inside the palace, called the janggo (醬庫), and a court lady known as "Janggo Mama" managed it. Janggo Mama was in charge of making and caring for the jang herself. Because she was responsible for the jang that decided how every dish tasted, her influence was said to be so great that she earned the nickname "Mama."
"Mama" was originally the highest honorific, reserved for members of the royal family, so using it for a court lady was highly unusual. "Just how powerful must she have been for people to call a court lady Mama?" It is fun to imagine.
The Records of the Three Kingdoms, a Chinese history written in the 3rd century under the Western Jin dynasty, includes a note in its section on the eastern peoples (the Book of Wei) that the people of Goguryeo were good at fermenting soybeans, that is, making jang.
Guess they were good enough to impress even the invaders.
Here is the list of wedding gifts King Sinmun of Silla sent when he took the daughter of Kim Heum-un as his new queen.
Yes, a king's wedding gifts included doenjang.
At 75, King Yeongjo said that as long as he had four things, pine mushrooms, raw abalone, young pheasant and gochujang, he ate his meals well, so his appetite had not grown old after all.
Yeongjo had a weak stomach and often suffered from stomachaches, and he once complained that his rice tasted so bland he could only manage a few spoonfuls. Keeping the king's appetite up was part of looking after his health, so gochujang came under the care of the Royal Infirmary (Naeuiwon).
But Yeongjo preferred the gochujang made by the family of Jo Jong-bu, an official of the Office of the Inspector General, to the one from the Royal Infirmary. Jo Jong-bu had impeached Yeongjo's trusted chief state councillor, which made him something close to a political enemy. So even though Yeongjo disliked the man, he could not resist his family's gochujang.
Seungjeongwon Ilgi (Diaries of the Royal Secretariat)Hate the man all you want; good jang is good jang.
In the old days, people believed that a sin (辛) day was a bad day to make jang, because sin sounds like sida, the Korean word for "sour," and jang made that day would turn sour. Once the year's jang-making day was chosen, avoiding sin days, the household stayed home, kept visitors out, and even forbade anyone from dipping a finger into someone else's jang for a taste.
There is also a story of a custom that families with the surname Shin could not make their own jang, simply because of how their name sounded. So their in-laws or neighbors made it for them, and some neighbors are even said to have placed their jar terraces on the side facing away from the Shin family's house.
Then again, a Shin later made it big with spicy ramyeon, so maybe that old grudge has been settled.
The Korea Heritage Service announced that it will hold the "2026 Re-enactment and Experience of Daily Palace Life" event around the Janggo at Gyeongbokgung Palace.
The jang-making experience runs from November 6 to 8. Participants make their own jang from meju (fermented soybean blocks) and salt water, guided by a master of traditional food.
The jang the participants make will age in the Gyeongbokgung Janggo for about four months. Then, at the jang-separating session planned for March 5 to 7 next year, they can split it into doenjang and ganjang and take it home.
The jang-making sessions run four times a day, at 10:00 a.m., 11:20 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:20 p.m. Each session takes ten teams of two, so a total of 120 teams, or 240 people, can join over the three days.
Not long ago, online booking opened for participants.
So how did it go?
Word is the tickets were gone with the wind the moment booking opened.
That's right.
Koreans take fermentation seriously.