Yakp’o to Yukpo: The Evolution of Korean Beef Jerky

“Finely chop tender lean beef and remove fat and tendons by straining through a coarse sieve. Mix boiled soy sauce and oil with finely chopped green onion, ginger, black pepper together with the meat and knead in a little bit of honey. On wide and flat leaves, spread the mixture thinly like flower-shaped griddle cakes and sprinkle with pine nuts. When this is about half-dried, serve as a side-dish for the elderly.” - The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman’s Guide to Living in Late Chosŏn Korea

This study of Korean beef jerky will begin centuries ago in the late Choson period in Korea. The best record of this delicacy at the time comes from The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman’s Guide to Living in Late-Chosŏn Korea by Madame Yi where she details the recipes and processes of making various traditional Korean dishes.[1] Madame Yi’s descriptions and cultural notes have made her book a necessary resource for anyone looking to understand the cultural context of Korean foods, including Yakp’o, in Choson Korea. 

For my project I recreated a modern-day recipe of Korean beef jerky known as Yukpo and will now engage in reflection on the process and how it compares to its origins in Madame Yi’s Yakp’o from so many years ago. I will then analyze what implications this comparison holds regarding the global community within the past 10 years. 

Process

 I began the process of recreating Madame Yi’s Yakp’o by following the instructions of the recipe and chopping my cut of Korean flank steak into small pieces. I then placed these pieces in a handheld medium sized sieve and began the process of sieving the beef to remove the striations, tendons, and fat. However, after working the beef for a while, I began to realize the sieve I had available to me were meant for much finer materials than beef such as sugar or flour. The beef was about impossible to get through the sieve without severely damaging the equipment which had been loaned to me. I then attempted to continue without sieving but realized this was too much of an alteration to consider it even a semi-accurate rework of the recipe. It was at this point that I had to admit defeat at the hands of Madame Yi’s deft artisanal craft and alter my project to analyze her recipe from a more reflective perspective.

The recipe I used for Yukpo consists of aged soy sauce, minced garlic, black pepper, red pepper flakes, honey, sugar, sesame seeds, and Korean flank steak.[2] The first step was to make the marinade for the steak, so I put into a bowl about a half cup of aged soy sauce, a spoon of minced garlic, a teaspoon of ground black pepper, a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, a tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon of honey, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. The next step was to slice the flank steak into strips. I carefully cut with the direction of the striation to get solid slices of what, to me, resembled a good shape for strips of beef jerky.[3] I then put the strips in the bowl with the marinade and mixed by hand until each strip was thoroughly glazed in the sauce. I covered the bowl with tinfoil and then left the strips to marinade in the refrigerator for forty-five minutes. After marinading, I moved into the first big adaptation of my recreative process where I used a convection toaster oven rather than a food dehydrator for the drying process of the jerky. I laid the strips out on a tray of tinfoil and put them in the oven on the “slow cook” setting with a timer of 4 hours. I was skeptical of this technique so I decided I would check back after two hours just to make sure everything was going well. However, to my horror, when I returned after about ninety minutes, I found strips resembling something closer to ash than jerky. The oven was far too hot, and I had to accept trial one to be a complete failure. After a few tears, I regained my composure and began trial two by repeating the marinading process. After marinading, I again put the strips on a tray of tinfoil and put them into the convection toaster oven. This time, learning from my errors, I set the oven to 160 degrees Fahrenheit on a convection setting to incorporate some airflow over the strips to aid in the drying process. I set them for two hours then flipped each strip over and left them for another two hours. The result was a very satisfying texture of well dried jerky with a sweet and spicy glaze from the delicious marinade. I put them on a cutting board and was sure to document my creation before serving them to be devoured by my suitemates who assured me of Yukpo’s fine quality.

Reflection on Physical Process

Reflecting on my experience with Madame Yi’s recipe, I now understand better the level of tacit knowledge required to bring these recipes to fruition. The act of sieving is one of the methods I did not anticipate to cause me difficulty, but have found it is a very important technique utilized very often throughout Madame Yi’s encyclopedia. The variety of recipes requiring sieving in their methods range from making food like jellied cherries to a more spiritual process in the method of burying the umbilical cord after birth: “Three days after delivery, do not cut off the umbilical cord, but wash the cord with liquor one hundred times. Put the fallen off pieces of the cord into a jar after sieving and sift together with an old coin, bind the lid of the jar with oil paper, cover it with a proper-sized dish again, weave a rope out of paper that is one hundred pal long, and bind the jar with it” (144). In each of these methods, sieving is given no more of a description than the simple verb of the act, leading me to believe this would have been a familiar technique to many in Choson Korea.  

Looking back at the process of recreating Yukpo I now realize how important tacit knowledge is in the culinary process. Even between trials one and two I felt I gained a better understanding of the method and even adjusted the ratios of ingredients of the marinade in trial two to bring out the flavor using a bit more of the aged soy sauce. Additionally, in my research of how to substitute the food dehydrator for another heating method I knew 160 degrees was the proper substitute but did not trust this extremely low temperature as the right process.[2] My lack of experience and tacit knowledge led me astray in trial one, however I feel I learned well from my failures and have found that failing is the best way to gain tacit knowledge. I was also incredibly impressed by the simplicity of using so few and readily available ingredients. Once I had all the ingredients in front of me, I double checked the list because I thought I had to be missing something. However, the simplicity of ingredients is contrasted by the traditional method of crafting Yakp’o. This is emphasized in Madame Yi’s recipe due to the more complex process involving the sieving of beef and the airdrying of the ground beef. I attempted this but found I did not have the experience nor the tools necessary to achieve it. 

Yukpo vs. Yakp’o: Culinary Differentiations

Though very similar, there are a few key differences in the method and final product of Yukpo and Yakp’o. The most prominent distinction in Yakp’o’s process includes the early step of pushing the steak through a sieve to remove the striation which results in a final product resembling a ground beef jerky.[4] Another variance comes in the drying process which may in part be due to the technological advances since the Choson period. Rather than use heat to dry the jerky, Madame Yi describes simply spreading the ground beef mixture over wide and flat leaves and allowing them to naturally dry due to open air exposure.[1][4] Yukpo, however, retains its striation because it is never pushed through a sieve in the preparation process. It also utilizes artificially generated heat and airflow to dry until it becomes the final product.[2]

What inferences can be drawn from process differences?

Though clearly originating from Yakp’o, the retention of striated strips in the modern dish of Yukpo is an example of both global influence on Korean culinary culture and Korean influence on global culinary culture. This aspect of Yukpo very closely resembles American beef jerky, leading me to believe that the significant spread of American culture across the globe through politics, language, and food has played a role in the development of Korean beef Jerky from Yakp’o to Yukpo. It is important to note, however, that this is not an example of American culture in Korea, or of the false perception of “copy-cat” culture in East Asia.[5] Rather, I see this as one small example of Korean culture driving the development of an evolving global culture by way of the renowned Korean cuisine.

Korean Cuisine as a Global Culture (Hansik)

Korean cuisine has become popular across the world over the past couple of decades due to its impressive flavors and government initiatives to bolster Korea’s image internationally.[6] To accurately contextualize global Korean cuisine, one must understand the history of its driving force beginning in the late 2000s. In 2008, President Lee of Korea gave a speech in which he said, “Sixty-three years ago today, we achieved the independence of our homeland from oppressive Japanese imperialism. The main reason we lost our country was that we did not have enough strength to safeguard it ourselves. To prevent such a tragic history from repeating itself, we should make our country rich and powerful with our own hands. By doing so, no country will dare covet our territory” [6]. The president’s administrative policy to achieve this was headed by improving Korea’s likeability and credibility internationally. The Korean government then identified hansik, or Korean cuisine, as its most effective tool in accomplishing the objective.[6] Korean cuisine has since gained the fame it deserves as a result of their efforts.[6] This is important to understanding the significance of Yukpo and Yakp’o because it is indicative of Korean cuisine’s importance on the global political scale. Madame Yi described Yakp’o as a delicacy to be served elders as a side dish.[1] Now, its descendant Yukpo is served across the world and has helped bring about a more stable sense of national security in South Korea. 

Works Cited

1.     Pettid, Michael J., and Kil Cha. “Volume 1, Liquor and Food, Part 2.” The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman’s Guide to Living in Late-Chosŏn Korea, vol. 11, University of Hawai’i Press, 2021, pp. 92–135, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1bn9jks.8.

2.     Maangchi, “Korean Beef Jerky, Yukpo 육포” Maangchi, August 11, 2021 https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/yukpo

3.     “Korean Beef Jerky, Yukpo 육포” YouTube, uploaded by Maangchi, December, 29, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Z7r0achfY

4.     “9. [규합총서] 약포와 총백떡갈비 Yakpo and Chongbaek tteok-galbi” YouTube, uploaded by 윤숙자의 손맛_Go K-food by Professor Yoon, March 10, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmSERRqP_HA&t=455s

5.     Ahn, Roy. “Home Run: My Journey Back to Korean Food.” Gastronomica, vol. 9, no. 4, 2009, pp. 12–15, https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.4.12. Accessed 24 Apr. 2022.

6.     Kim, Chi-Hoon. “Let Them Eat Royal Court Cuisine! Heritage Politics of Defining Global <em>Hansik</Em>.” Gastronomica, vol. 17, no. 3, 2017, pp. 4–14, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26362456. Accessed 25 Apr. 2022.