I know many viewers want to focus on the romance and ignore the palace politics. But the palace politics drives the plot and it gets less confusing when we can identify the faces. So, I took screenshots as visual aids.

To me, the set-up of the palace politics is like a game of chess. We have the two kings, queens, bishops, rooks, and knights. Grand Prince Jesan’s pieces are more unified in their movement so at the moment, they’re controlling the center (i.e., the game).  Meanwhile, King YiHeon moves haphazardly across the board, without much direction and organization because he doesn’t recognize the trap set for him (or the “discovered check”).

Hopefully, he’ll wizen up soon or it’s game over for him.

1. The Coup Plotters

So far, we have identified five members.

a. Grand Prince Jesan

To recap: he’s the cousin of the late king.

JiYeong thinks he’s the Grand Prince Jinmyeong who took the throne after the revolt. Grand Prince Jinmyeong, like King Yi Hyeon is a made-up character.

In real history books, however, he would be the equivalent of Grand Prince Jinseong, whose personal name is Yi Yeok, and temple name is Jungjong. This Grand Prince Jinseong became king after Yeonsangun, his elder half-brother, was deposed.

There’s no mention of him being part of the coup in history books.

One interesting thing about Grand Prince Jesan is that he likes to play the simpleton. I’m sure his charade is intended to deceive others of his ambition to take over the throne. In Episode 1, he appeared drunk at the ritual, annoying the Prime Minister. In Episode 4, he escaped the ministers’ meeting by pretending to need the toilet. In Episode 5, he was faking when he told the king in an avuncular manner, “Watching you enjoy your meal also put me in a good mood.” Then, in Episode 6, he pretended to be asleep during the banquet when the contest themes were selected. Considering that he had sent the silver bullions as bribe to the Ming envoy the previous night, he had a personal stake in the proceedings.

I’m sure his position as superintendent of the Saongwon [where the food tributes were gathered and collected] isn’t a job title that he envisions for himself long-term, especially when he was the cousin of the late king.

b. The concubine Mokju

I don’t need to talk about her in this episode.

c. Minister Kim YangSon

From Episode 5, we learned that he has a personal vendetta against the king. During the First Literati Purge, his younger brother Kim Ison died “suddenly,” and his whole family was wiped out. Only he survived the purge because he was the king’s lecturer/teacher.

So, he hired the jester, GongGil, to assassinate the king during the hunt. However, GongGil is also the king’s favorite jester and go-to guy for secret missions.

In Episode 5, Prince JeSan blasted Minister Kim for hiring the assassin without his permission. As a result, Minister Kim dismissed GongGil’s services and paid him with a tract of land and enough money to live the rest of his life in hiding.

But Prince Jesan’s men were waiting to ambush GongGil.

After GongGil survived the assassination attempt, he sussed out that Minister Kim was merely a subordinate – or underling – of Prince JeSan. Prince JeSan was the ringleader.

d. This unnamed man sitting to the left of Minister Kim

His role is still unknown. So is his connection to the coup plotters.

Was he the minister sent to the Byeokjegwan to meet the Ming envoy and to find out about his food demands in Episode 5? I couldn’t tell by their faces if they were one and the same person.

e. Right State Counselor, Minister Sung InJae

He was sent by Prince JeSan to bribe the Ming envoy, Yu Kun.

He indicated to the envoy that they wanted a “regime change” because the king wasn’t of the right mind. He specifically said that the king had fits and saw things that weren’t there (e.g., after the competition of the three cooks for the Chief Royal Cook position).

He also told the envoy that he would personally ensure that the envoy’s three cooks would win the competition, and instructed the envoy to set the stakes high. That is, demand 100 Joseon women as tributes instead of 50, and all the harvested ginseng in Joseon instead of merely double the amount.

The envoy, avaricious as he was, perked up when he heard the proposition. But to his credit, he had every confidence in his cooks and appeared to want to win the competition, fair and square. But Minister Sung cautioned him that the king’s cook was incredibly skilled. He further blackmailed the envoy with a ledger of past bribes.

This whole scene tells us two things:

One, the real enemy isn’t the Ming envoy but the traitors in King YiHeon’s royal court. They’re willing to betray their female citizens and sell their resources to oust him from power.

Two, King YiHeon is the good guy in this story and his coup plotters are the bad guys.

Remember what I always told you all in this blog: The end NEVER EVER justifies the means.

Even if the desired goal is good (e.g., removal of a supposed insane and tyrannical king), an immoral or unethical method of achieving the goal (e.g., corruption, bribery, trade collusion, and sacrifice of women) is unacceptable.

2. King YiHeon’s defenders

The problem with his defenders is that they aren’t organized as a team. Each one is acting independently without consultation with others, unlike Prince JeSan’s team.

a. The Grand Royal Queen Dowager

After the cooking competition she organized to discredit JiYeong, she’s had a change of heart. I think she’s finally on the side of her grandson.

I don’t think she’s blood-related to Prince JeSan. Prince JeSan was the nephew of her husband, the cousin of her late son, and the uncle of her grandson/current king.

I wonder what her relationship is with the Ming imperial family that the Ming envoy is clueless about.

b. The Prime Minister

The Prime Minister is at the Queen Dowager’s beck and call. Hopefully, they can use her connection to stop the Ming envoy’s demand for more women and ginseng as tributes.

c. Secretary Im

For now, I don’t doubt his loyalty to King YiHeon.

But he has a weakness. I think his attention is solely on the Ming delegates and he doesn’t see the trouble brewing with his colleagues in court.

Minister Im: Son, if our cooks lose this competition, it will greatly damage His Majesty’s reputation. Have you any clever device?
Sec Im: Father, do not worry too much. They can do what they want, but they are in the land of Joseon. I will ot allow them to get their way. I cannot accept that.

I hope this isn’t just hot air coming from him.

d. GongGil

He’s a wild card but when he finds out that his sister didn’t die from the King’s hand but from Mokju’s, then it’s game over. I hope he spills the beans that Prince JeSan is plotting a coup before it’s too late.

e. JiYeong, of course

She’s the King’s ace, and trump card.

3. The Ming cooks

I like the extra complication that the Ming cooks add to the game of chess because they transfer the attention to JiYeong and the culinary theme of the series.

a. Tang Bailong

He’s a descendant of the Sichuan Tang clan, famed for martial arts, but was annihilated a century ago because of treason. It’s funny that JiYeong thought Bailong sounded like a character from a martial arts fantasy fiction. Meaning, her colleagues were unnecessarily making a legend out of the man.

According to Cook Eom, however, Bailong challenged and beat all the cooks from famous inns in China, then collected their signboards like a scalp…errr… trophy.

Specialty: Sichuan cuisine

b. Ya Feixiu

Tang Bailong’s niece and pupil. She’s the “fairy” of Sichuan fare. When Cook Maeng said that Ya Feixiu combined it with foods from other regions, JiYeong called her a “food researcher.” A food researcher works in a test kitchen or lab to create new food or improve the taste of existing recipes.

Feixiu also “stole” a gochu pepper from JiYeong’s kitchen. Since she’s the best person in the team to analyze it and figure out how it can be used to enhance their dish, I hope GilGeom remembers to report this incident to JiYeong soon.

I also like that JiYeong destroyed Feixiu’s knife as payback for spying on them and flaunting her chopping skills. I like it because it tells me that JiYeong can fight dirty when needed. I’m tired of seeing doormats as heroines.

Specialty: I say it’s fusion Sichuan cuisine

c. Kong Wenli

He’s a mysterious cook; thought to be descendant of Confucius.

Specialty: Shandong fare

Note 1: I’m not surprised that this director likes to incorporate competitions in his kdramas. I still remember the drawing competitions in “Lovers of the Red Sky.” The heroine handily won all her events because a) she impressed the judges by thinking outside the box, and b) one of the judges (the Prince, if I remember correctly) was biased in her favor.

Note 2: I heard there were grumblings about the Chinese diction of the actors playing the Ming delegates. Look: if they didn’t complain about Im Yoona’s lousy French accent in Episode 1, then I think they should also pay no mind to the actors’ lousy Chinese accent.

Personally, I think the director made the right call NOT to hire Chinese actors to play the Ming delegates because the Ming delegates are portrayed as the BAD guys in the show. Duh! Can you imagine the firestorm over perceived racism and Sinophobia had Chinese actors been cast? At least, with the present Korean cast, the outcry is limited only to their terrible (and comical) accent, and not the plot’s depiction of the Chinese as greedy imperial overlords.

4. The Contest Rules

Theme for Round 1: The king and envoy picked the sticks with the words “nonexistent” and “meat.” It was decided that the cooks would cook a meat dish that hadn’t been seen before.

Ahhh…that’s why JiYeong wants to make a pressure cooker. Is she planning on making Korean short ribs? Pot roast? Boeuf bourguignon? Chicken tikka masala? Goulash?

I’m hoping she’ll make something like a tur-duc-ken, which is a deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck which is then stuffed into a deboned turkey. Think of it as a food equivalent of the Russian matryoshka doll.

Theme for Round 2: JiYeong and Bailong drew the next sticks. The words “know” and “change” were picked. Since the words didn’t make sense when combined, the envoy suggested that they drew again. But King YiHeon proposed that the two cooks make each other’s cuisine as “diplomacy is about learning and understanding each other’s cultures.”

Fortunately, the Joseon cook assigned to this round is Cook Eom who went to the Ming empire for a year to learn to cook Chinese…errr…Ming cuisine. Of course, JiYeong can plan the meal with him to make it fancier, but he can certainly match Ya Feixui’s cooking skills.

Theme for Round 3: For the last round, Prince Jesan and the Confucius-like Ming cook drew the sticks. They came up with the word “soup” and “ginseng.” The envoy was gleeful to hear this because the Ming cuisine was famous for its soups while the Joseon cuisine wasn’t.

Cook Maeng is Japanese-trained but I don’t think there’s a famous ginseng soup in Japan. The Korean “samgyetang” made of chicken is all I can think of. I doubt he’ll use the arsenic in this round, though.

5. How does the black sesame macaron relate to the theme of the show?

I think you can figure this out, but here’s what I think, anyway.

JY: You should handle political matters politically.
King: Cooking is politics. Politics isn’t just conducted with swords, spears, diplomatic events and documents. Resolving political issues by exchanging food and culture is such a peaceful solution.

King YiHeon was talking about “soft power.” I already told you about soft power when I discussed haute cuisine. I said King Louis XIV used his meals to demonstrate not only his excellent tastes, but also his overwhelming influence and supreme authority over his citizens, and the whole of Europe.

The macaron is an example of soft power…or should I say “sweet” power? By using black sesame as filling, JiYeong added a Joseon twist to this sweet concoction and impressed the nitpicky envoy and his three cooks. She won them over without brandishing a sword.

However, the Ming envoy came ready to leverage his three cooks’ talents to gain more tribute from King YiHeon. He intended to play hardball with the cooking competition, not soft diplomacy. We shall see the results of the cook-off this weekend.

Of course, another way the macaron can relate to the theme of the episode is its sweetness. Just as the macaron highlighted the craving for sweetness after a long journey, the market date of JiYeong and YiHeon highlighted a sweet moment in their relationship. They enjoyed the simple pleasure of being in each other’s company: buying gifts, fooling around and walking home. 🤔 Come to think of it, even their hanboks were muted in color like macarons.