Choosing to live a “second life” with Japanese cooking
Acknowledging the power of washoku that is spreadingin various countries
Ko Jee-Eeun (46, South Korea)
Ko Jee-Eeun is a cook with an unusual career history: She has worked as a designer of golf wear for nearly twenty years.
At present, she studies at Hattori Nutrition College in Tokyo.
As a designer, Ko had opportunities to dine at high-end restaurants. She first fell in love with Japanese cooking in her
20s when she visited London and Paris. She became intrigued with kaiseki-ryori at a Japanese restaurant, serving
individual dishes to each guest. “I felt that this was a type of cooking that made it easy for people, even if they are notvery close, to dine together,” she says. As she continued to travel to various countries for work, she discovered that thesame Japanese cooking changes its taste as different local ingredients are used. While living in Manila, Philippines, shebecame impressed with the fact that Japanese restaurants were crowded with Philippine customers despite their highprices. When she was compelled to give up her work as a designer because of stress and illness, she recalled theseexperiences. She made up her mind that she would open her own restaurant one day. To begin her new life, shedecided to study Japanese cooking. She chose Hattori Nutrition College because she loved to watch “Iron Chef,” apopular cooking TV show from Japan that was aired overseas as well, and remembered college president Yukio Hattori
who had appeared as a judge.
Ko feels that Japanese cooking and clothes design have lots of things in common. “Golf wear must be nicely designed,and also functional at the same time: it must be comfortable and easy to move in. Japanese dishes must be beautiful,and also functional at the same time: you must consider if they are easy to eat, and how their textures are, etc. I thinkthat Japanese cooking is the only cuisine that considers fine points that far,” she says.
“Harmony: Western-style nikujaga” was a dish she had contrived for the contest. To enter a culinary school, she firststudied Japanese language for two years. Alongside her studies, she asked her friend to translate several Japanese
cookbooks into Korean, and studied Japanese cooking. It was then that she realized that all the cookbooks featured
nikujaga, a dish of beef cooked with potatoes popularly served in Japanese households. She wanted to arrange it tomake a dish that goes well with wine, and eaten at a fancy restaurant. These thoughts were put into her dish forcontest.
To make it so that people could enjoy two types of nikujaka with a single dish, she placed, on a plate, nikujaga havingrobust sweetness, covered it with mashed potatoes, then arranged a wagyu diced steak. Since the contest is held inwinter, moreover, she came up with the idea of keeping nikujawa nice and warm: placing a thin metal plate, boasting
outstanding thermal conductivity, over small heated stones. She arranged a small purple flower as an accent, tocomplete the dish. Ko is confident of her arrangements and presentations that reflect her tastes in design which she
has cultivated over the years.
Ko says that she wants to open a washoku restaurant overseas and spread Japanese cuisine. To make her dream areality, she is planning to advance to the Japanese cooking course offered by the school, beginning in April, and makethe traditional tastes her own.

Harmony: Western-style nikujaga