Grab some bibimbap, a nice dong po rou, and your favorite of the jang trio (I vote for gochujang), and get ready to talk nose work, Korean cooking show style!
A while back I wrote a post about the Great Pottery Throw Down (GPDT), a British challenge show led by master potter Keith Brymer Jones that hand-built a smile on my face from episode 1 with its cast of beautifully real potters, and its deep embrace of the potters’ experiences from the highs of an imagined design born into clay as a delicate and moving porcelain light fixture, to the lows of a perfect piece blown apart in the kiln. The heart of the show was master potter Keith. He would push for excellence, and challenge the competitors to perform under intense time pressure, yet he would also come apart in a flood of tears and choked up utterances at the unrealized beauty of a failed piece of pottery. It is this raw devotion to the pure expression of the human soul that draws me into a show like GPTD. Master potter Keith knows that a factory process can churn out thousands of perfectly matched bowls, but one human expressing her heart – be it with perfect technique, or be it through imperfect, authentic expression – transcends craft and art to create true connection.
When my daughter and I stumbled across Culinary Class Wars (CCW) on Netflix, we gave it a try simply because we’d never watched a Korean cooking show. Within the first few episodes, the pure essence of the competitors, like “Self Made Chef”, “Edward Lee”, “Comic Book Chef”, “Auntie Omakase #1”, and “Napoli Matfia” won us over. As the show continued, I reveled in the reverence for craft, taste, and self-expression of the two judges – one a Korean-born and based self-taught chef, Paik Jong-won, and the other a Korean-born, Los Angeles raised, classically trained chef with the only Michelin 3 star restaurant in Korea, Anh Sung-jae. Each judge created an environment where competitors were supported in their full expression of heart and soul.
Like GPTD, CCW features time pressure and a focus on perfect dishes, however, the judges take every opportunity to shine a light on what matters most to them: experiencing a chef’s heart and soul through food. On my journey into the world of nose work, the masters I have met are very much like the judges of these two shows, they see the usefulness of perfect technique and time pressure, but what they really live for is the opportunity to share in another being’s authentic expression. These masters allow for the possibility of something unexpected or unproven to happen. And, when a human goes all in on a hand crafted porcelain sink, or a traditional Korean seaside dish, or a search with her dog, true magic flows and we get a convergence of authenticity, uniqueness, and joy that would bring Keith, Paik and Anh to tears.
White Spoons And Black Spoons
The framework of CCW is built around a battle between the “white tablecloth” type chefs with french culinary pedigree, Michelin starred restaurant experience, and a talent for elevating classic dishes, and the “street” chefs, often self-taught, humble or even self-doubting, but possessing a mysterious connection to the conjuring of amazing cuisine. “White Spoons” vs “Black Spoons”.
What I love about the production of the show is that there is very little manipulation of the audience in terms of creating heroes and villains, or over-emphasizing group differences. In some cases, some of the White Spoons don’t fit the label, likewise, some of the Black Spoons have similar Michelin experience as the White Spoons. This helps the viewer not to take the “us vs them” set up too seriously.
Nose work began as a game to give the “Black Spoons” a seat at the search table. The early nose work class participants were overwhelmingly pet dogs, rescue dogs, reactive dogs, and retired sport dogs. As competition nose work grew, more and more high drive, working lines, in-their-prime – “White Spoon” search dogs – entered the nose work game.
Most of the 100 competitors in season 1 of CCW are working chefs. Some own restaurants. Some have youtube channels and social media fame. While the competition might give a meaningful boost to a chef’s profile, it’s unlikely to act as a chopping block upon which a chef would stand to lose his status or employment in the real world. Nose work competitions should function the same: a great trial performance should be enjoyed and applauded, a stinker of a trial should be accepted the same as an over-salted or undercooked dish: toss it in the trash (aka: give it to Jeff, he’ll eat it) and go back to the kitchen and keep cooking.
The CCW judges themselves could be separated, Paik belonging to the Black Spoons, and Anh belonging to the White Spoons. Early nose work trials were judged mostly by the White Spoons of the detection world – master trainers, MWD and LE handlers. The certifying officials who created the search areas and hide placements, however, were a bit more Black Spoon – starting with the civilian detection handlers who co-founded the sport with Ron, and later including COs from the “streets” of fun nose work, like myself. Today, there is still a healthy mix of Black and White Spoons providing competitors with their challenges and feedback.
Judging On Taste And Smell
One of the early challenges the Black and White Spoons face is preparing a dish for the judges to evaluate while blindfolded. What a cool idea! Watching Paik and Anh react to the smell and taste of the dishes without seeing them is a delight. Both judges get to show their intimate connection to ingredients as well as culture. Anh correctly sniffs out the presence of individual spices. Paik detects and names ingredients by taste. We even get to watch close ups of the judge’s opening their wouths wide to take huge bites of complex dishes, and we get to hear them chomp, smack, and slurp these mystery meals. These two are the real deal.
Who is the real deal in nose work? It is the same as CCW. If you have someone observe a blind search with a dog and handler team, and that person can recognize the components of the language of the search and get a sense of the flavor of the dog’s communication, you’ve got the real deal. Awareness is the mark of authenticity. You can build all of the skills and knowledge you want, but if you fail to use awareness to understand when/why/how to use your skills and knowledge, you become less effective – and more destructive – than a complete noob (that is teenager lingo for someone with no experience at all).
Enhanced Simplicity
Numerous times throughout the competition rounds of CCW you can find chefs preparing simple, traditional dishes. The judges bring specific expectations to these dishes: preserve tradition, while producing a new depth of flavor, texture, and presentation. Some chefs play it too safe, others take liberties with tradition that don’t line up with the judge’s ideas. The show does a great job of bringing us closer to each chef’s process. Unlike many American challenge shows, where drama is isolated and amplified, and production and editing are shamelessly employed to manipulate viewers, Korean productions keep things pretty chill. We get to watch a chef prepare a cut of beef using only charcoal and salt. While the chef doesn’t make it past judge Anh, the show gives us a realistic view of the chef’s efforts such that we can make our own judgement and recognize the intent, the talent, and the potential. When a young female chef prepares a traditional Korean dish using ingredients and methods that far predate her age, she impresses Chef Paik, showing a reverence for the region the dish comes from, and respectfully adding a new dimension to the dish.
In nose work, there is a simplicity that exists from the earliest days of the game: dogs hunting for their food or toys and self-rewarding. Some people have an interest in adding ingredients to the dish – target odor, cues for starting/finishing/moving on; leash handling styles; search patterns; final responses. Some people like to move back toward the simplicity, or to work with a particular ingredient like handler movement – and thinly slice it to get to its essence.
I love that the nose work community has room for every stripe of scent work and scent play. I see the intent and the possibility in a team’s simple, clear, and efficient competitive search, just as I see the creativity and the authenticity in a team’s blind search exploration of a city park for an unknown number of hides with no boundaries and no titles on the line. If either team steps into the judge’s arena, they will be judged. But, that is not a repudiation of their choices or performance, nor is it an endorsement.
Vulnerable Victuals (pronounced “vit-lz”)
There are two rounds where CCW chefs were explicitly asked to infuse themselves into a dish, to lay bare who they think they are through a culinary creation. Early in the competition the Black Spoons had to show who they are in a dish. One of my favorites, “Comic Book Chef”, was self-taught and got his ideas from the pages of comics. He devised a dish, including spring rolls with powdered sugar, that was unique and delicious, winning over chef Paik. Late in the competition, the remaining chefs had to really lay bare their inner selves through their culinary creations in a grueling round where new variations on the same ingredients had to be produced to stay in the game. Edward Lee really shined in this round. He combined a self-effacing charm with a magical connection to creativity, all while delivering world class flavor, texture and presentation in his dishes.
I’ve been lucky enough to see more than a few teams connect with their brilliance in nose work. Sometimes it’s just me, the handler and the dog. Sometimes it’s in the arena of competition. I have favorites, for sure, but I see brilliance so frequently in dogs (sometimes, humans, too!) that I could give ten examples from this week alone! See, dogs are always giving you their essence. They are masters at communication and connection. We are masters at manifestation. Experiencing the brilliance of a search is as simple as manifesting the awareness to see the light the dog is sending out to you.
Gamification And Giggles: A Recipe For Innovation
There’s a round in CCW where competitors must make a dish out of convenience store items. This setup is not new to cooking competitions. Putting constraints on the chefs demands of them a bit of creativity, a bit of silliness, and a bit of magic. Some chefs really knock it out of the park. My favorite being the chestnut tiramisu dessert created by Napoli Matfia using his favorite cream buns (which subsequently became so popular that they sold out following the airing of the episode). All of the chefs took risks, created something unexpected, and left the rest to the judges. You can’t get a magical dish without making a dish.
In nose work, I can safely say I have created and presided over a multitude of gamified search challenges. When I offered group classes, I would delight and torture my students with myriad twists on the typical nose work search. There have been entire weekends and competitions orchestrated by me where the rules are bent, twisted, or put into a blender and atomized out of existence. In CCW, whenever an unexpected twist is revealed, the chefs respond with exaggerated exclamations of “ooh” and “whoa”, sometimes combined into “OOOOWHOAAH”! It’s infectious. One time, I revealed to competitors at the Turner Trials Palmdale edition that they would have to search around a large kiddie wading pool at a waterpark for hides that were within the pool area, only they and their dogs couldn’t touch the water. I heard a lot of exclamations! All I’ve ever asked of the participants in these games has been their willingness to create something with their dogs. I am grateful for every dog and handler duo who has ever cooked up a performance under the constraints of one of my games. Many magical searches have resulted.
East By East-West
During the writing of this blog, my daughter and I began watching Culinary Class Wars: Season 2! All of our favorite elements are in this year’s season, along with a few new, unexpected twists. While the show has upped the stakes, with celebrity chefs, fancier props, and a bit more western-style editing, it’s still very much an eastern production, and still focused on chefs expressing their heart and soul through food.
After round 1, which involves 80 Black Spoons competing to be 1 of 18 remaining black spoon chefs to take on the White Spoons, round 2 is a revisiting of the Black vs White duel with blindfolded judging. While many of the duels are exciting, with great match-ups, and salivatory dishes, there is a clear standout: Venerable Sunjae vs “Dweji Gomtang in New York”; two “short-haired” chefs whose cooking styles could not be more different: Venerable Sunjae, a Buddhist Temple Cuisine Master cooking with only certain vegetables and spices, and Dweji, a master of his namesake pork broth dish.
Venerable Sunjae is the first recognized Master of Buddhist Temple Cuisine. How do we know this? It’s not her decades of experience, nor her vegetable prepping skills, it’s not even the taste of her pine nut noodle dish. It’s her energy, her presence, her being. In her intro reel she says, “there is a certain authenticity in our cuisine, one that highlights natural flavors”. When looking for a chef to duel with, she says, “I’m looking for someone who takes great joy in Korean cuisine, and wants to share that joy with me.” When Dweji steps up and accepts the duel, he says, “as a chef I thought I could gain some enlightenment from dueling her. Facing her is like facing a mountain. I’m excited to learn.” Later in the competition, judge Anh will taste Venerable Sunjae’s Bibimbap and say something like, “it makes me feel humility in my stomach”. Who has ever said that about a bite of rice and vegetables?!
Dweji is a master in his own right, making the dweji gomtang pork bone soup so well that people from all over the world fill his New York restaurant. While he does not have Venerable Sunjae’s presence, he is a perfect pairing with her. He respectfully restricts his dish to only the ingredients that can be used in Buddhist Temple Cuisine (notably, no pork), and he cooks with intention, inspired by Venerable Sunjae and her belief that food is medicine and we receive that medicine best when the chef prepares the food simply, to connect the eater to the pure essence of the ingredients.
Venerable Sunjae embodies what we might think of when we think of an “eastern” being. Dweji, resides in the west, but he is no less an eastern being. Watching the two chefs prepare their dishes is thrilling. Who knew that simple vegetables prepared with a deep reverence could release such flavor? How would anyone know what they were seeing as these two chefs cut up some vegetables? Luckily, we get cutaways to the other chefs not currently cooking as they ooh and aah from an elevated walkway. We hear things like, “She embodies the pine nut. She is the pine nut.” “What hands? She’s moving so fast I can’t see them. She moves like lightning.” When chefs geek out on chefs you know some cool shit’s going down.
Before the judging begins, Venerable Sunjae, having finished her dish first, observes Dweji completing his. She gives us her thoughts, “I really wanted to cheer him on. I could see how hard he was working. I actually thought it would be nice if he ended up winning.” Wow. You never hear that on a competition show.
If we aren’t sure of the depth of beauty being created by knife and hand, salt and soy, the judges will soon instruct our senses. Venerable Sunjae’s dish is pine nut noodles with vegetables, she calls it “Monk’s Smile”, because when they eat it at the temple it makes the monk’s smile. Simple and profound. Dweji’s dish is a pine nut sauce tossed with various vegetables. The blindfolded judges begin with the pine nut noodles. They note the texture of the noodles, the crunch on the Korean melon. Judge Anh says, “whoever made that, they were no ordinary chef, they were something special.” Next they try Dweji’s dish, remarking on the exceptional flavor and texture of the vegetables and the interplay of the pine nut sauce with each type of vegetable. “They’re no ordinary chef, either!” exclaims Anh. Watching and listening to the judge’s noses inhale the spoonful of each dish, then their mouths savor the large serving with slow, deliberate mastication, you can imagine the delight of experiencing simple ingredients in a unique way while focusing on the food, not the chef who made it.
My daughter and I could not bear to see either of these chefs be voted out of the competition. They represent right being through the act of cooking. They speak through the ingredients. They bring a transcendent energy to the competition. It is about the food. Not about them. It is about the process of preparing the food. Venerable Sunjae is a monk. Dweji is a New York restaurant owner. Each chef represents awareness, intention, and being. We could have watched these two cook every last dish for the rest of the competition!
In nose work, I have come across a “Venerable Sunjae” dog & handler team on occasion. In competition searches it is evident through the intention of the human to listen to the dog, and the quality of the interplay between them when questions arise through the dog’s communication. I will award a “Pronounced” mark to a team who serves me a search with these ingredients, regardless of the outcome of the search in terms of hides found, falses called, and time elapsed. Venerable Sunjae describes her process as maximizing the flavor of simple ingredients. In a nose work search, the simple ingredients are: listening, conversing, and acting. Maximizing the flavor of these ingredients can take various forms, but it has to do with awareness and intention. Imagine observing a search where a dog excitedly charges through the search area and finds some hides. There can be great awareness and listening in this search. Now, imagine a search where the same dog is sometimes finding a hide, and sometimes seeming like he’s going to find a hide, only to persist in the area or leave and return repeatedly. There are opportunities for listening and conversing. Conversing may be as simple as a vocal or body gesture that has shared meaning between you and your dog. Usually, conversing done well will lead the human to a clear choice: return to listening, or consider acting. Intention is key when conversing and acting. Many handlers either avoid conversing and acting, or do it without awareness and intention. The masters – while not always achieving the outcome of a competitively perfect search – do not shy away from listening, conversing and acting, they use awareness and intention to commit to the process. Focusing on and revering the process is what masters project out to others. Observers no longer see just a pine nut dish or just a competitive search. They see beings who have given over themselves to the process for the sake of elevating and maximizing the simple ingredients of the search. While skill and experience can be present in a master’s process, I have witnessed masterful searches from dogs and humans who have not acquired skills or experience. Some beings are much more in tune with the process than others.
The Acceptance Of Defeat
Seasons 1 and 2 of CCW highlight what seems to be a cultural difference between the east and the west: acceptance of defeat. Pick any challenge show in the US (many in the UK) and you’ll get a consistent undercurrent – sometimes an overwhelming surge – of shame or blame energy from competitors who are eliminated from the competition. Watching Physical 100, Final Draft, and CCW – all asian productions – you rarely observe a competitor in the energy of shame or blame. Instead, you get acceptance, gratitude, and learning. In CCW, an eliminated competitor carries his nameplate to a hallway and places it on a ledge. He’ll then say something like, “well, the other chef was clearly the more skilled of us, but I gave it my all, so I’m proud of how I did and I’ll just work on getting better.” Or, “I’m grateful for this opportunity, it was an honor to be here, I learned so much.” On the rare occasion where a chef gets down on herself, it stands out like unsweetened winter watermelon or poorly seasoned sea squirt. Tony Robbins likes to say, “trade expectation for appreciation.” On CCW, the competitors are living proof that it can be done at the highest level of performance. It’s not just the competitors, the judge’s don’t create an atmosphere of expectation, either. Sure, they have high standards and they can be critical, but they judge the dish, not the chef.
Unfortunately, in nose work, we have a hearty helping of shame-soup and blame-berry pie being served up and eaten amongst the community of competitors and COs/judges. It’s a very unhealthy bug (or sadly, feature) of the western mind. When we create a search with our dogs, rather than letting that creation gracefully float freely out to the world, we tie ourselves to it and fight the creation’s nature, wanting to leave the ground, but afraid to fall from high up, so we rise and drag, rise and drag. Go to a nose work or scent work competition and pay attention to what people say and how they behave. Not everyone is down in the mud flailing around throwing tantrums and pointing fingers. Many people just point the finger at themselves and say, “I’m the weak link.” “I screwed up.” “Stupid human.” When people come to me as a coach, I ask “what do you want to experience with your dog today?” And, they tell me all of their recent failures, mistakes, and woes from competition or group class searches. We are all human, so even an eastern Buddhist monk is susceptible to shame or blame, but it is overwhelmingly the exception. The western mind makes it the rule.
The good news is, we are all human, so we can be just like Venerable Sunjae and the other chefs of CCW if we choose to be. Watching a show like CCW will inspire you to put love, care, energy, and joy into your searches, and also, to let them go. They are your creations, but they are not you. Not yours. I am at my most joyful when I listen to a dog communicate through the act of searching. I love to create a search with a dog through conversation and action. I have no need to find hides or avoid false alerts. I know that the process sometimes produces a magical search with fast, focused, and accurate conversation and action. I also know that sometimes, the process results in a search that’s cumbersome, confusing, and falls apart, like a Croaker’s swim bladder overstuffed with blue crab meat (season 2, episode 10 if you need context).
Search Umami
Umami is a term used many times in CCW. It originated in Japan in the early 1900s to describe the savoriness of kelp broth. Savoriness is the 5th of the major taste descriptions. The others – sweet, sour, salty, bitter – are pretty specific to the taste experience. Savory, on the other hand, feels more expansive. Watching the judges on CCW, when they exclaim a dish to have the “Umami” taste, their energy and body language is so much more evocative than if they bring up a dish’s “saltiness”, or “sourness”. “Sweetness” is described with a bit more emotion and feel, but nothing compares to Umami.
What is the savoriness of a nose work search, the “search Umami”? I think it is the connection an observer can see, feel, and have an emotional and body response to. A search might be efficient, it might be clean, it might be fast. But, if a search is Umami, it has a richness that includes those elements, and an expansiveness beyond them. I know the searches that I savor. There is no doubt. They move me, they linger with me. I love sweets and sours, too, but an Umami search, that will always get my most enthusiastic OOOOWHOAAH!
Search Harmony
The next time you search with your dog, search with intention. Be connected to what you see and what you do. The next time you search with your dog, search with awareness. Be present and accepting of what your dog is communicating. The next time you search with your dog, listen, converse, and act. Harmonize.
Season 2 of CCW features a round of competition where chefs pair up – picking their partners – to create a dish that harmonizes while being true to each chef as individual creators. The judges use the idea of harmony as their guide when deciding which chef pairs are up for elimination and which chef pairs are up for survival. One of their favorite dishes of the round is called “Land and Sea” and features a variety of fish and vegetables done in Italian and Japanese cooking styles. There’s blue crab coated in egg and fried, there is potato gnocchi, there’s asparagus – all savored in a broth made from combining separate broths of blue crab and bonito flakes. The judges eat the entire dish, then converse in hushed tones, their hands hiding their mouths. Judge Paik says, “it’s like, being in Japan, then Italy, Japan, then Italy, back and forth.” Judge Anh concurs, “it’s a really fun dish… they did an incredible job.” The chefs are called back to the judging table, where Anh says to them, “in a really technical sense, every single component in this dish… was perfect. And, even though I’m a judge, just speaking as the person eating it, it made me feel like a kid again… at one point, I wanted to steal from judge Paik’s plate.” Judge Paik makes the final remark: “it was a harmonious dish.”
The next time you search with your dog, consider that you are two chefs co-creating a dish. You each bring a style and a self-expression to the search. How will you harmonize? The answer will not be in the choosing of methods – pairing or clicker training – or the blending of styles – dog driven or handler guided – the answer will be in the broth – the base – in which all the ingredients of the search are maximized. The base of a harmonious search is trust and understanding. Just as judges Anh and Paik pour a spoonful of harmonious blue crab and bonito broth over their fried egg blue crab ddeokbal, a dog and human’s search is most savory when flavored with trust and understanding. How will you know if you’ve got your search broth right? You’ll have to listen to yourself and your dog, listen to a trusted observer. Search for your reaction to a search – do you get goosebumps, or whole body tingling? Can you create the search, then separate yourself from it, and let the search soar? Listen to a trusted observer – does the search give them a smile, make them feel like a kid again? Do they see a dog and human in service to the search, enriching and enhancing it? The surest sign of search harmony: you don’t want it to end. You want to savor every last second, every last sniff.
Happy Search Creating!
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