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Elementary school student versed in 5 cuisines
Ask Roh Yu-jeong, an 11-year-old elementary-school student, what she wants for dinner, and she may whip up a gourmet meal for you, instead. Roh is the holder of professional chef’s licenses in five different cuisines. According to Cheonjeon Elementary School in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, Roh Yu-jeong, a sixth grader there, recently passed an examination provided by the Human Resources Development Service of Korea to become a qualified professional chef of Chinese cuisine. This is Roh’s fifth of such licenses, as she is already versed in Korean, Japanese, and "Western" foods, as well as preparing the potentially poisonous globefish for consumption. The only daughter of Roh Do-seop and Cheon Yeong-im, who run a raw fish restaurant in Jinju, Roh Yu-jeong began to cook at the age of seven. She had to practice cooking for about 10 hours every day to obtain her licences. After taking the examination for her Chinese food license, she visited China for a week to learn how to cook at a restaurant there. To get her license to prepare globefish - considered the most difficult cooking license to obtain - she traveled to Japan to take training there during a festival for the fish. Roh’s cooking skills are so widely known in the Jinju areas that she is called a "little Daejanggeum," or a royal chef. Roh has been concentrating her efforts on developing new dishes, such as an omelet using Kimchi."Instead of being satisfied at my accomplishments, I want to globalize and commercialize Korean dishes," she said. Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
