Chapter 25:
The Butcher Woman (2)
The cattle market had descended into chaos, a veritable madhouse. Equipment flew through the air, clubs and fists swung wildly. The merchants at the market, long frustrated by the Hyeonbang men who constantly harassed them over unauthorized slaughter, finally snapped. Like dry straw catching fire, their pent-up anger exploded, and they rushed into the fray, escalating the situation into a full-blown melee. Amid the torrent of curses and kicks, only the hapless oxen bellowed in distress.
Yet, even in the pandemonium, the Hyeonbang men’s attacks on the butcher woman remained relentless.
“Hmph, not a chance!”
Each time, the woman dodged with the grace of a willow branch, her knife slicing through their clubs, cutting them clean in half. But one Hyeonbang man, biding his time, crept behind her and drew something from his robes—a gleaming dagger.
At that moment—
“Whoa!”
The man with the dagger stumbled as if tripping on a rock, collapsing to the ground. Gong-gil, who had been watching from a distance, had swiftly kicked the back of his knee.
“Tch, playing dirty, are we?” Gong-gil said with a smirk, stepping back to resume his role as a spectator.
How long did the chaos last? As the saying goes, even muddy water settles once the loaches swim away. The Hyeonbang men, bruised and limping, began to retreat, and the uproar gradually subsided.
“You scoundrels! We’ll report you all to the authorities, mark my words!”
“You’ll pay for this illegal slaughter!”
As the Hyeonbang men hurled threats while slinking away, the market merchants grew bolder, their voices rising.
“Take that, you bastards!”
“All talk and no spine!”
One merchant grabbed a handful of salt and flung it after them, putting a final exclamation point on the brawl, which ended like a dramatic performance.
“Those damned fools…”
“Feels good to let off some steam, doesn’t it?”
The merchants vented their frustrations with a few choice curses, savoring their brief moment of triumph. But the satisfaction was short-lived. Turning around, they saw the market in ruins—tents propped up by bamboo poles, stalls selling beef soup, and fences for the oxen all broken and scattered across the dirt. Worse, the damage wasn’t limited to a single day’s lost business.
“We chased them off, but… will this be okay? What if the authorities actually show up?”
“How should I know? I’m getting out of here. I’ll skip the next market day.”
“Me too. I don’t want to get caught in the fallout.”
Reality sinking in, the merchants, faces etched with worry, hurriedly packed up and dispersed.
“Hey, butcher woman. You were brave, but if the authorities come, you’ll be the first to suffer. Get out of here quick,” one merchant whispered to the butcher woman as he grabbed his ox’s reins and left.
But the butcher woman, named Bong-dan, stood frozen, unable to move. And for good reason. Those who had sold their oxen could take their earnings and leave; those who hadn’t could simply take their livestock and go. But Bong-dan was in a different position. She needed to sell the meat she had butchered, but the chaos had left her with nothing—no profit from what was essentially her entire livelihood.
“Bong-dan, that’s enough. We’re still in one piece, aren’t we? Let’s go,” the older butcher, presumably her father, said, trying to console her.
But Bong-dan couldn’t bring herself to move. “Father, it’s… it’s unfair…”
Tears welled in her eyes. She had known about the territorial disputes, but never imagined they’d be this severe. Worse still was the bitter truth that, as butchers, they were met only with scorn and mockery, with no one stepping forward to help.
“How long do we have to live like this?”
“Bong-dan, stop it. You know we have more important things to do.”
“…”
At her father’s words, Bong-dan fell silent, reluctantly turning to leave.
“Wait.”
The voice stopping them belonged to Ji-yeong. As Bong-dan looked at her warily, Ji-yeong thrust out a bundle of cloth.
“Everything you’ve got. I’ll pay what it’s worth.”
“…What are you asking for? Didn’t you see the mess just now? What, you want this?” Bong-dan said sarcastically, pointing at the ground.
Scraps of meat littered the dirt, most of the usable pieces already scavenged by beggar children roaming the market.
“Not that. The parts you still have. I’ll pay a fair price for all of it.”
Bong-dan looked back and forth between the cloth bundle and Ji-yeong’s face, her expression one of confusion.
…
“What were you thinking, leaving without a word like that?”
The moment Ji-yeong stepped back into the royal kitchen, Eunuch Yoon’s scolding, laced with exasperation, poured out.
“The palace is in an uproar, and you’ve made it worse!”
“I just went to get some ingredients… Is something wrong?” Ji-yeong asked cautiously, noticing the pallor on Yoon’s face.
“A palace official has vanished! And not just any official—a trusted scholar from Hongmun-gwan.”
“An official… vanished?”
“I don’t know the details, but the guards at Geonchunmun, the eastern gate, were the last to see him. He left through there and hasn’t been heard from since.”
“Is that such a big deal?”
“A big deal? Of course it is! A key court official disappearing out of nowhere! And this is confidential, but…” Yoon glanced around dramatically before lowering his voice. “The missing Hongmun-gwan official, Lee Jang-gon, took the Geumdeung with him.”
“The Geumdeung?”
Yoon clicked his tongue, glaring at Ji-yeong as if she were clueless. The term Geumdeung, literally “a box sealed with iron,” referred to a container holding the court’s most sensitive documents—secrets so explosive they could cause chaos if revealed, yet too important to be forgotten, meant to be passed down to future generations in a tightly sealed box.
“The disappearance of a box containing the palace’s top-secret documents is no small matter! The palace is already on edge because of this, and with the head cook nowhere to be found, how could the kitchen not be in a panic?”
“I was just trying to get new ingredients…” Ji-yeong’s voice shrank, feeling as though she’d committed a grave error.
Yet, part of her felt unjustly blamed. To fulfill the king’s constant demand for new dishes, she had to venture outside the palace to source ingredients, didn’t she? But Yoon wasn’t one to care about such nuances.
“Thanks to you, His Majesty is in a foul mood, so you’d better put extra effort into tonight’s meal, or we’re all in deep trouble.”
With that cryptic mix of advice and warning, Yoon stormed out of the kitchen. Catering to Yeonsangun’s picky palate had just become even more daunting.
“Are you really going to serve what you bought today? Even a feast of delicacies might not be enough in this situation…” Jang-geum said, her face clouded with worry.
And no wonder—Ji-yeong had paid the butcher woman for a heap of ox offal, not prime cuts.
“I’ve heard some people eat offal, but… isn’t that something butchers and commoners eat? If you serve that to His Majesty, it could be disastrous.”
“Don’t worry. His Majesty will love it,” Ji-yeong reassured her.
In her mind, Ji-yeong recalled a historical tidbit often cited about Yeonsangun’s eccentric tastes: he was known to enjoy dishes made from animal fetuses.
“I can’t get a fetus on short notice, but ox offal? That I can manage!”
Based on that record, she had a plan to create a dish that would please the king.
…
“Are you trying to mock me?”
“No, Your Majesty, never…”
The atmosphere in Gangnyeongjeon, where the meal was served, was frigid. The palace was already on edge due to the incident, and the late hour of the meal only heightened Yeonsangun’s irritability. He picked up a piece of food with his silver chopsticks, sniffed it, and grimaced.
“This is made from offal, isn’t it? You dare serve the base food of butchers to me?”
Ji-yeong felt a pang of unease at his cold reaction. Was the story about his love for fetus dishes just a rumor? Or had he not yet developed a taste for such things? Either way, she needed to defuse the situation quickly.
“No, Your Majesty, this is not base food. Quite the opposite—it’s a delicacy.”
“What?”
“Butchers, who know meat better than anyone, always take the offal first.”
In this era, offal wasn’t widely valued because it spoiled quickly compared to lean meat. Without a refrigeration system, only those who slaughtered animals daily could access fresh offal. This led to the perception that it was food for butchers, but offal itself was by no means an inferior ingredient.
“Butchers have fed their families with offal dishes for generations. The people hold food as sacred, don’t they? To rule them, shouldn’t you know what they eat?”
“To rule them… I must know what they eat?”
Ji-yeong nodded. The phrase minisikwicheon—the people regard food as heaven—came from the *Records of the Grand Historian and was also cited in Mangunrok. To think she’d invoke it here.
“Thanks to meeting a skilled butcher with freshly slaughtered offal, I was able to procure this rare ingredient, making it a truly precious dish.”
Yeonsangun’s interest seemed to pique. “Hmm, then tell me about this dish.”
Seizing the opportunity, Ji-yeong pointed to the centerpiece of the meal. “This is a dish made from the calf’s thymus gland.”
The calf’s thymus, known in French as -ris de veau-, is a premium ingredient, referring to the gland extending from the thymus to the pancreas. In English, it’s called sweetbread for its creamy, tender texture. However, as a cow matures, the thymus shrinks and hardens, so only the gland from a young calf is considered top-grade.
“Luckily, the ox at the market wasn’t fully mature, so it had a usable thymus,” Ji-yeong thought.
She had lightly boiled the thymus, then cooked it using the -poêle- method—searing it in a hot pan, then covering it to cook gently over low heat, preserving its creamy, moist texture, a hallmark of French thymus dishes.
“And this is made from the cow’s fourth stomach, the abomasum,” Ji-yeong said, pointing to another dish.
The chewy abomasum dish was a specialty. In modern Korea, it’s often called makchang, but strictly speaking, the abomasum is the reddish portion. It’s a rare ingredient, with only about 400 grams per cow, and difficult to prepare.
“When lightly cooked, it has a unique texture,” Ji-yeong explained.
She had added a verde sauce—a green sauce made from minced vegetables—for a fresh flavor.
“Of course, the original verde saucebuses prezzemolo (Italian parsley), but water parsley can achieve a similar effect.”
Parsley and water parsley are cousins, after all—English even calls Korean water parsley water parsley.
Finally, instead of bread, Ji-yeong used lightly toasted jeungpyeon (steamed rice cake) to create an open sandwich with the abomasum, inspired by Florence’s famous lampredotto.
“The thymus dish whets the appetite, and the lampredotto is the perfect follow-up.”
The completed meal: [Calf thymus poêle and -jeungpyeon lampredotto- with water parsley *verde sauce*].
“Shall I taste it for you?”
“No need. I’ll try it myself,” Yeonsangun said, unable to resist any longer. He eagerly picked up his chopsticks.
First, he tried the thymus dish. The moment it touched his tongue, his eyebrows shot up.
“Oh! This is… a delicacy! So soft and smooth, like silk!”
The creamy texture hit first, followed by waves of rich flavor, leaving him momentarily speechless. Savoring it, he turned to the next dish with anticipation. The toasted jeungpyeon topped with plump, chewy abomasum was visually striking. Setting down his chopsticks, he picked up the lampredotto with both hands and took a bold bite. His expression transformed dramatically.
“Oh, what an extraordinary taste! Chewy yet rich… this exquisite flavor…”
While Ji-yeong knelt before the table, Yeonsangun devoured the dishes with relish, shaking his head in amazement.
“To think butchers were eating such delicious food. The audacity…”
Ji-yeong, stealing a glance, let out a silent sigh of relief. “Phew… judging by his reaction, I’ve made it through today.”
Satisfying Yeonsangun’s foul mood was a victory in itself.
Then, out of nowhere, he said, “I want to see the raw ingredients used in this dish.”
Though sudden, Ji-yeong was prepared. “I thought Your Majesty might be curious, so I brought them.”
Thanks to a tip from Im Sung-jae, she knew Yeonsangun sometimes liked to inspect raw ingredients. She proudly presented a tray of offal—cleanly prepared pink abomasum, thymus, and other organs.
“Sung-jae’s proving to be quite useful,” she thought.
Yeonsangun’s eyes gleamed with interest. “So, these are the offal.”
But then, his brow twitched as if something caught his attention. “Where did you get this?”
“From the cattle market today, Your Majesty.”
“No, not that—the thing underneath.”
“…Pardon?”
The thing underneath—did he mean the paper wrapping the offal?
“You mean the paper it was wrapped in?”
“You’re certain this paper was used to wrap the offal?”
Yeonsangun’s expression had grown grave. Ji-yeong, puzzled, could only nod.
“Y-Yes, Your Majesty.”
At that, he grabbed the paper and held it up to the lamplight, examining it closely.
“This is yew paper, made by the Joseon Paper Office for official use. It’s not something you’d find in the market.”
“That can’t be. I saw the butcher woman wrapping it with that paper…”
“Then there must be a reason butchers have access to paper from the Joseon Paper Office.”
“A reason…?”
“Who in the palace handles paper the most?”
“Paper… You don’t mean…”
Yeonsangun’s eyes gleamed sharply, as if he’d caught a lead. “The officials of Hongmun-gwan, who manage documents.”
