Eumsik Dimibang
- Year
- 1670
- Era
- 17th century
- Origin
- Korea · East Asia
- Language
- Korean (hangul)
- Category
- Korea
Eumsik Dimibang, compiled around 1670 by the Joseon noblewoman Lady Jang Gye-hyang, is the earliest known cookery manuscript written in hangul by a woman in East Asia. Composed for her descendants, it records some 146 recipes covering noodles, fermented foods, meat and fish preparations, and alcoholic beverages, offering an exceptional window into seventeenth-century Korean yangban household cuisine and the domestic literacy of aristocratic women.
Cooking from this book
Gamjajeolpyeon (steamed rice cake with potato starch)
Signature dishAmong the 146 entries recorded by Lady Jang is a delicate steamed rice cake whose binding relies on potato starch, a preparation emblematic of the refined Joseon yangban household kitchen. The dish has become closely identified with Eumsik Dimibang because it captures the manuscript's wider achievement: a noblewoman setting down, in vernacular hangul, the everyday savoir faire of an aristocratic Korean table that would otherwise have passed only by word of mouth.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
