Madam Yi Pinghogak’s Jellied Fruit
Introduction
The recipe for Jellied Fruit from Yi Pinghŏgak’s The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman's Guide to Living in Late-Chosŏn Korea is both intriguing and holds important historical context in the Choson period of Korea. Traditional Korean Fruit Jelly, (과편, or Gwapyeon) is made by boiling fruits, adding sugar and/or honey, and adding starch in order to coagulate the mixture. Gwapyeon is also known to be a type of Korean hangwa (한과), or a traditional confection. A variety of different fruits can be used, some of the most popular being cherries, raspberries, and apricots. These are also the fruits that have recipes provided for in Madame Yi’s Encyclopedia. Interestingly, this recipe contains no gelatin, yet the texture still resembles that of gelatin even though the recipe is vegetarian (the addition of honey is the only thing preventing it from being vegan, but sugar can just be used instead to make it vegan). After the mixture hardens, the jelly can be sliced into pieces, and a beautiful looking fruit jelly will result. This jelly is a dessert, and due to its colorfulness and aesthetics, it was usually served as dessert in the royal court as well as during royal banquets.
The Choson Dynasty of Korean is the longest-reigning dynasty in Korea from 1392-1910. Yi Pinghŏgak lived from 1759-1824 and was the author of one of the first cookbooks in Korea. She helped expand woman’s literacy and role in society with her The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman's Guide to Living in Late-Chosŏn Korea, in which she provided information on how women of a higher status conducted their daily lives. Not only does the Encyclopedia cover recipes from savory to sweet, but she also instructs on prenatal care, childbirth, first aid, childrearing, and so much more.
Madame Yi’s Recipes
The following are the recipes I aimed to recreate:
Figure 1. These recipes all come from Volume 1, Liquor and Food Part 2.
The following ingredients are needed in order to recreate the jellies:
Cherries
Raspberries
Peaches
Note: Since apricots were not in season and could not be found frozen at the time of making the jellies, I chose to substitute peaches instead.
Honey
(Corn) Starch
Figure 2. I would like to note that I was only able to obtain fresh raspberries. The cherries and peached used were both frozen.
The instructions are pretty straightforward, minus the fact that it is very vague about amounts/measurements and times. Therefore, I think the main challenge will be having to attempt multiple trials in order to get the correct consistency and color.
Research Question
It is interesting that Madame Yi states “The main difference is that this is easier to do right than the jellied cherries” for the instructions on making jellied raspberries. This made me wonder, why is it easier to make the jellied raspberries versus jellied cherries? Is this a skills issue (time/measurements) or due to an inherent property of the fruit? I also wondered how this would compare to the process of making the jellied peaches. Madame Yi did not mention anything about the difficulty of producing the jellied apricots, which is of interest as well. I was excited to try it out and see for myself.
Making of Jellied Raspberries: Trial 1
The raspberries were first steamed until they were broken down. to mush and all the seeds were visible. This process took about 8-10 minutes on a low-to-medium heat setting.
Next, the raspberries were sieved until all liquid possible was removed and only raspberries seeds remained in the sifter. In the liquid portion, 2 tablespoons of honey were added. Then the liquid portion was poured back into a pot and left to boil. When the liquid became slightly thicker, one level teaspoon of corn starch was added. Since it states “if too much starch is added, the color will be cloudy and it ill be hard,” I was worried about adding too much starch. The resulting mixture was poured into a glass container and refrigerated.
Making of Jellied Cherries: Trial 1
Two bags of frozen cherries were used, double the amount of raspberries used. This is because once I poured the raspberry mixture into the glass container to put into the fridge, it was not as much as I thought it would be. Therefore, I doubled the cherries and was also worried that because they were frozen, not as much juice would be extracted, and so also doubled the recipe for that reason. It took about 17-20 minutes for the cherries to become mushy enough that the skin broke down, and only the juicy/liquid part of the cherries remained. Similar to the raspberries, the cherries were then strained. Since I now used the double the amount of fruit, I chose to put in 4 tablespoons of honey.
The cherries were left to boil until the texture seemed to be slightly thicker. Then 2 level teaspoons of corn starch were added (double that of the raspberries), and everything was thoroughly mixed and poured into a glass storage container. This was then also put into the fridge.
Making of Jellied Peaches: Trial 1
The same amount of peaches was used as cherries (2 bags of frozen peaches), so the procedure was followed exactly as explained for the frozen cherries. However, the peaches were really hard and difficult to break apart, so the initial steaming step took approximately half an hour. Additionally, the water kept being vaporized off, so the peaches required a constant addition of water in order for them to become soft and sieved later in the process. Other than this, the procedure was exactly the same, and the mixture was also stored in the fridge.
Figure 7. All three jellied fruit concoctions before they were stored in the fridge. Top: peach; bottom left: raspberry; bottom right: cherry.
Trial 1 Discussion
After refrigerating the jellies for about 3 hours, I took them out of the fridge to cut. However, I found that consistency was not that of gelatin; the mixtures were still liquid-like, just thicker, sort of like a jam. So, unfortunately, the first attempt was not successful. I then tried to put them in the freezer to see if this would help. As a result, the fruits froze, and the “jam” turned into a delicious sorbet, although not the desired outcome. I hypothesized that this fail was due to not using enough corn starch. I think the fruit definitely needed a lot more of a coagulating agent in order to be able to obtain the appropriate gelatin-like consistency. Therefore, I tried again, this time, using much more corn starch but keeping all other parts of the procedure constant.
Trial 2: Adding more Corn Starch
When reattempting the recipe, I chose to use raspberries for my trial since they were the only fresh fruit available, and hence, most likely to resemble that of how the jellies were created during the Choson Dynasty, when only fresh fruits in season were accessible. This time, instead of adding one level teaspoon per one large box of raspberries as previously pictured, I chose to slowly add one and a half tablespoons of corn starch. However, the corn starch quickly clumped together, and no matter how hard or long I whisked it for, less and less product was formed as the jelly became hard and clumpy. I think this is what Madam Yi referred to as “if too much starch is added, the color will be cloudy and it ill be hard.”
Figure 8. Resulting jelly after adding too much starch.
It can be seen that the jelly started to really stick to the pan, and all the clumps of corn starch can be seen as well. Therefore, this second trial was also a fail, and I was determined to find a happy medium.
Trial 3: Mung Bean Starch
I did some research online, and I found that mung beans, an inexpensive and nutritious food, is an essential ingredient in a lot of sweet Asian cuisines. Mung beans were also commonly used during the Choson period as mung beans are a staple crop in many parts of Asia. Hence, mung bean starch was popularly used in cooking jellies, sweets, and other confections during the Choson period. Additionally, the granules are very small, giving it a unique texture, and has been known to have been successfully used in the creation of jellies. Some advantages of mung bean starch as compared to others also include: it gels between 136 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, and reaches maximum thickness at 203 degrees (as compared to corn starch which has a rather high gelatinization temperature compared to other starches ranging from 144-203 degrees Fahrenheit), has a higher stability to prolonged cooking, and even has a naturally subtle sweet flavor that makes it good in the usage of dessert making. It is also just known to be an essential ingredient in the production of Asian-style desserts, specifically jelly and pudding. Therefore, I chose to try out the recipe again, this time, only changing the fact that I would be using mung bean starch instead of corn starch.
Figure 9. Mung Bean Starch
Additionally, I also learned that it is better to first dissolve the starch in water before pouring it into the fruit and honey mixture. This helps prevent clumping. So, this was also a change I made when using the mung bean starch. However, I did not try this out again with the corn starch, but I think that if I did, the jelly would also have come out a lot better and not as clumpy.
In this attempt, I wanted to create a larger batch so I used one full box of raspberries and a half as pictured in the ingredients image. I used approximately 2 and a half heaping tablespoons of mung bean starch in this attempt. I dissolved it in water and slowly added it until the texture started to become very thick. When it became thick to my liking, I stopped and poured the jelly into a container. I thought it was really interesting that the entire container was filled, especially when compared to my first trial in which approximately a third of the container was filled. I believe this is due the the addition of water being added with the starch and so the water did not fully evaporate, leading to this increase in volume. The mixture was set to sit in the fridge overnight. The next day, I went to felt the jelly and was pleasantly surprised to see that it had the exact same texture as gelatin/jello. I transferred it to a plate and cut it with ease into squares as pictured above. This trial was a success! The taste was good, and very similar to that of jello. It was not very sweet, but this is likely just due to the fact that I only used three tablespoons of honey in this case. Additionally, the flavor felt a little weaker/diluted than that of the first trial “sorbets” which tasted more concentrated with fruit flavor. I also assume this is due to the addition of large amount of water to the mung bean starch in order to get the jelly to not clump up. However, it did come out correctly and the jelly was enjoyed by my roommates and me!
Reflection
I purposefully chose to recreate the “easier” raspberry recipe first even though the jellied cherries recipe is listed first in Madam Yi’s Encyclopedia. Why I chose to do the raspberries first is because this way I could really test if the process was easier. I have never made anything like these jellies before, and so that would mean that if I completed the jellied raspberries first with no prior experience and still thought this was easier than my second procedure with the jellied cherries, the raspberries must truly be easier to make. On the other hand, if I made the cherries first, I could have thought it was harder just because it was my first time doing it and could have come to an incorrect conclusion that the raspberries are easier even though they weren’t, and it was just a skill/inexperience issue. However, the conclusion was that the raspberries were the easiest of the three fruits by far due to the mushy nature of the fruit and the fact that the skin did not have to be broken down. I also came to the conclusion that it is important to use fresh, not frozen, fruit. It is much more difficult to extract the juice from thawed frozen fruit, which is why I chose to attempt trials 2 and 3 using only raspberries. Plus, I already answered one of my research questions as to why raspberries are the easiest fruit to make the jelly out of: because raspberries are the mushiest and do not have any hard skins that contribute to a difficulty of breaking down the fruit in the initial steaming process.
Nonetheless, I did come across another problem with the starch. From my research, it seems like it is common knowledge in the cooking/baking world to mix starch with water in order to prevent clumping. However, I am not a cook or baker, and so was unaware of this fact. This was my first time using starch in a recipe. I assume that this fact of dissolving the starch in water was to be interpreted in Madam Yi’s receipe which is why it was not directly stated, thereby causing me trouble until I searched for further information online. I also found that in the modern making of such jellies, for practicallity in saving time, a blender would typically used in the first step to create the fruit juice versus the steaming process. Since I wanted to stay as true as possible to the original recipe, I did not attempt the jelly making in this way. For further insight/studies, I think it would be interesting to further investigate how the results differ between the steaming and blending method, and also investigate If corn starch can be used to produce a similar result if it is dissolved in water as compared t0 the mung bean starch dissolved in water.
Overall, the jellies created were a beautiful, colorful, and fun way to learn more about the history of confectionaries, starch use, and royal banquets of the Choson Dynasty. Madam Yi’s recipe continues to be relevant and successful today, although I experienced a few bumps in the road along the way.
References
Primary Source:
Yi Pinghŏgak 憑虛閣李氏 (1759–1824), The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman's Guide to Living in Late-Chosŏn Korea. Translated by Michael J. Pettid and Kil Cha. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2021).
Secondary Sources:
“Gwapyeon(과편, 果片).” AwesomeKFOOD, 13 Oct. 2016, awesomekfood.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/%EB%B8%94%EB%A1%9C%EA%B7%B8%EA%B2%8C%EC%8B%9C%EB%AC%BC/.
Kot, Anna. “11 Types of Starches, Explained.” Tasting Table, Tasting Table, 24 Feb. 2023, www.tastingtable.com/1209347/types-of-starches-explained/.
Lee, CH. (2022). Food Culture in the Early Historical Era: Vegetarianism, Rice Cakes, and Traditional Sweets. In: Korean Food and Foodways. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0023-5_5
Chung, Hae-Kyung, et al. “Research on Joseon Royal Birthday Cuisine Memos.” Journal of Ethnic Foods, 17 Dec. 2018, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352618118302178.
“VISITKOREA.” Traditional Korean Fruit Jelly (과편 / Gwapyeon), Korea Tourism Organization, 19 Oct. 2023, english.visitkorea.or.kr/svc/thingsToDo/foodTrip/special_view.do?vcontsId=181047.
