Gyuhap Chongseo
- Year
- 1809
- Era
- 19th century
- Origin
- Korea · East Asia
- Language
- Korean
- Category
- Korea
Compiled by Lady Bingheogak Yi during the late Joseon period, Gyuhap Chongseo is an early nineteenth-century household encyclopaedia addressed to women managing a Confucian gentry home. Its chapters gather practical knowledge on cookery, brewing, sericulture, weaving, dyeing, child-rearing and folk medicine, drawing on earlier Korean and Chinese sources. The work stands as a major vernacular witness to Joseon domestic culture and women's learned writing in Korean.
Cooking from this book
Yakgwa
Signature dishYakgwa, a honey-soaked fried wheat confection shaped into ornate florets, is among the emblematic preparations recorded in this early nineteenth century household compendium. Lady Bingheogak Yi gathered such sweets alongside guidance on weaving, sericulture and domestic management, situating refined court and yangban confectionery within the wider rhythm of household life. Yakgwa endures as a ceremonial sweet for ancestral rites and festive tables, and its inclusion here signals the book's role in transmitting elite Joseon culinary craft.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
