Muan Red Clay Fields Large Family, Mother-in-law's Sweet Potato Shoot Kimchi and Catfish Stew Meal

Korean Wanderings: Soil-Colored Chefs

- The story of farmers' handmade flavors, creating the best dishes with carefully grown, high-quality ingredients.

We meet farmers who cultivate the soil—the greatest supporter for creating healthy and delicious food and the generous embrace of nature that nurtures countless lives—to reap fruits and prepare abundant tables with their wisdom and handmade skills.

Experts in handmade flavors who are no less than professional chefs when it comes to fresh ingredients they have grown themselves! We taste heartfelt meals filled with the energy of the soil.

* Broadcast Schedule: September 14, 2026 (Mon) ~ September 18, 2026 (Fri) at 9:35 PM, EBS1

Part 1. Happiness Hanging Abundantly on the Table – September 14 (Mon)

Kang Haeng-won has been farming sweet potatoes for 20 years in the red clay fields stretching along the coastal road of Muan, Gwangju, Jeonnam. He lives in the same village with his extended family, including his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, all farming together.

This year, as always, the large family has all mobilized to harvest the sweet potatoes they have cultivated with sweat in the red clay fields from spring to autumn.

While Haeng-won takes great pride in sweet potato farming, he says there is an expert whose sweet potato dishes are incomparable. It is none other than his mother-in-law, Mrs. Ahn Deok-sun!

A "rice thief" meal prepared by the mother-in-law's skillful hands includes sweet potato shoot kimchi, made by blanching sweet potato shoots and mixing them with salted seafood and various seasonings, and sweet potato shoot catfish stew, boiled vigorously with plenty of perilla seed powder.

Adding crab marinated in soy sauce, made by his wife and second sister-in-law using field crabs caught in the mudflats in front of the sweet potato field, and spicy braised chicken filled with sweet potatoes, it is nothing short of a feast.

We meet the sweet farmer's meal, filled with happiness, prepared by the large family together.

Part 2. Three Meals a Day of the Cheonghak-dong Matriarch - September 15 (Tue)

Yoon Gil-rye has been running a guesthouse with her husband for nearly 40 years in Cheonghak-dong at the foot of Jirisan.

She captures the palates of guesthouse guests with the flavors she inherited from her biological mother and the skills she acquired while helping her mother-in-law as the eldest daughter-in-law of the Eun family, the head house of Cheonghak-dong.

When she prepares a table using wild greens gathered directly from the mountains, vegetables grown in her garden, chickens she raised herself, and seasonal foods, guests cannot help but give her a thumbs up.

From a breakfast table lavishly prepared with Jirisan wild greens that puts a 20-dish spread to shame, to mountain vegetable bibimbap for lunch, and even chicken baeksuk made with native chickens she raised herself for dinner.

There are no fancy secrets or expensive ingredients, but we taste the three meals a day in Cheonghak-dong, prepared with overflowing generosity and incredible handmade skills that make the table legs bend.

Part 3. The Offering Room Where Lotus Flowers Bloom - September 16 (Wed)

Following the Buddhist teaching of "If you do not work, do not eat," Venerable Seong-won, the abbot of Seonwon Temple on Ganghwa Island, has been cultivating lotus fields and practicing for 26 years.

Having walked the path of a practitioner for over 50 years, the monk takes the restoration of the Seonwon Temple site, which was responsible for the production and storage of the Tripitaka Koreana, as his lifelong mission and cultivates lotus while performing religious duties.

Venerable Seong-won says there is nothing to waste in a lotus, and he is developing various foods using everything from the lotus flower, lotus leaf, lotus root, lotus stem, to the stamen.

He prepares offerings with lotus dishes that have emerged into the world through long research, such as lotus flower kimbap and lotus flower sushi, kalguksu made with ground lotus leaves, and lotus stem pickles!

Even a cup of instant coffee is not just drunk plainly. He says that if he mixes it into lotus leaf tea or lotus flower tea and drinks it using a lotus stem as a straw, the fatigue from hard labor vanishes completely.

The monk, who suffered from heart disease in his youth, found that lotus was a great help in recovering his health. Believing it to be food that benefits people, he not only farms lotus but also obtained a doctorate in the subject.

We meet Venerable Seong-won's healing lotus meal, prepared with all his heart and prayers for the health of all living beings.

Part 4. Cypress Forest Painted on the Table - September 17 (Thu)

Kim Sook-ja, who fell in love with the joy of cooking while tending the 400,000-pyeong cypress forest left by her father-in-law, prepares sincere meals for 10 guests a day who visit the cypress forest! Using wild greens from the forest and vegetables she grew herself, she prepares various unique dishes such as cypress boiled pork (suyuk), green onion crackers, lettuce pickles, and takrak-juk (milk porridge).

Guests receiving the colorful meals are all moved, exclaiming, "It's art!" and "It's like a painting!"

Sook-ja, who puts effort into every dish, from the taste to the plating and even the dishes, as if she were painting, is also a painter who majored in Korean painting.

After losing her health while preparing for exhibitions by working through the night without rest, she entered her father-in-law's cypress forest and was healed in both body and mind...

We meet Sook-ja's cypress forest meal, which she prepares with such care, using the table as a canvas so that anyone feels treated like royalty.

Part 5. A Meal of Maggie for the Paddy Field Fisherman - September 18 (Fri)

A farmer who used to grow rice in the fields has become a fisherman! Kim Dong-su and Kim Myeong-seop, a father and son. Kim Dong-su has been raising Maggie in the red clay water of the paddy field ridges for 35 years. His son, Kim Myeong-seop, is steadily following in his footsteps.

Kim Dong-su, who fell in love with the taste of freshwater fish living in the reservoir next to the rice fields he used to farm, turned the rice field into a fish farm to raise Maggie. Because the land itself consists of good red clay, not only do the Maggie grow healthily, but Maggie raised on red clay have less fishy smell and firm flesh!

On the day of catching Maggie, which occurs twice a month, they must catch as many as 3 tons. A rare sight unfolds as they set nets in the paddy field ridges and drive the Maggie toward them by tapping the water surface with sticks.

Once the father and son catch the Maggie, it is time for their mother, Park Hwa-sook, to show her skills. She is a self-proclaimed expert in Maggie dishes, having operated a specialized Maggie restaurant for 15 years! She quickly prepares a full table ranging from spicy Maggie maeuntang to Maggie bulgogi, and even Maggie grilled rice bowl made by Myeong-seop, who passed down his mother's special sauce recipe!

We meet the red clay Maggie meal that provides bursting energy from the paddy field fisherman family.

* Related photos are available on the EBS institutional website (about.ebs.co.kr) - Cyber PR Office - Highlights, on the corresponding broadcast dates.

◆ At a Glance

· Publishing Institution: EBS

· Category: Korean Wanderings

· Distribution: September 13

Source: EBS Press Release

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