Bon Appétit, Your Majesty Episode 5 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Lim Yoon-a as Yeon Ji-young
Lee Chae-min as Yi Heon (King)
Kang Han-na as Kang Mok-ju
Choi Guy-hwa as Grand Prince Jesan
Lee Joo-ahn as Gong-gil
Oh Eui-sik as Im Song-jae
Jang Gwang as Chang-seon
Park Joon-myun as Choi Mal-im
Hong Jin-gi as Maeng Man-su
Kim Hyun-mok as Min Gae-deok
Jo Jae-yoon as Tang Bailong

Early in the morning, a furious racket wakes the royal kitchen. The cooks assume the king has called his performers again and hurry to make his chojoban, the early-morning meal. The noise is Yeon Ji-young, the chef from 2025 who now cooks for the king, the morning after King Yi Heon kissed her. She has stayed up all night, and the kitchen is out of firewood. Seo Gil-geum begs her to say what happened, but Ji-young only grumbles about making hangover soup for a punk without any gochugaru, the Korean chili powder. Then she takes it out on a dried pollack, pounding the poor fish into powder.

At breakfast, she serves Yi Heon a dried pollack consommé, which he hears as something consumed in hay. Choi Mal-im, his senior court lady, tastes it for poison. He sends everyone else out and asks Ji-young whether something happened last night. He was drinking to forget, he points out, so of course he does not remember. She repeats his plea that she stay as she is for a while, and he stares at her blankly.

Ji-young draws a line. He is not remotely her type, she tells him. Yi Heon replies that she is his chief royal cook, and he does not think of her as a woman at all. She calls that perfect, then tells him to watch himself when he drinks at night. He promises he will.

Afterward, Yi Heon asks Chang-seon, his chief eunuch, what happened at Unyeongjeong, a palace pavilion. Chang-seon admits, haltingly, that the king laid his lips on the cook's. The memory comes back. Yi Heon wonders whether to ignore it or soothe her anger, then decides a king has no reason to fret over his cook.

The jester and the hairpin

Outside, Ji-young is still muttering about men who black out and feel no shame. A stranger asks what is bothering her, and she does not recognize him until he reminds her: he is Gong-gil, the king's jester from the other night. She informs him that she is now chief royal cook, a sixth-rank junior official, and after a laugh he promises not to mock her again. He asks after Gil-geum, whose attacker he chased off, though he saw only the hem of a skirt in a court lady's colors. She should be careful for a while, he says. He only found her because he was looking for someone, and he will not say who.

A memory follows of Gong-gil's older sister, Ok-dan, taken to Jahongwon, the palace office run by the king's consort, and brought home dead, while a mourner curses the king. In voice-over, Gong-gil says he has found the owner of the binyeo, the hairpin Ok-dan clutched even in death. If he watches her closely, he will soon learn the rest.

At Jahongwon, the king's long-serving consort Kang Mok-ju asks an attendant whether Gong-gil saw her during the competition, and is told not to worry. Mok-ju wonders whether the jester has taken a liking to the gwinyeo, her name for Ji-young (it means female ghost). If so, he will get in her way. She orders someone trustworthy to learn everything about Gong-gil and asks for an audience with the king after the morning assembly.

Silver for the Ming envoy

In the hall of governance, ministers' letters ask the king to lower the ginseng tribute owed by the Hwanghae governor. Smuggling in Kaesong has left the province short. The Ming envoy, due in Hanyang, the capital, in four days, may raise the matter too. The chief envoy is Yu Kun, leader of the Imperial Eight, the Ming emperor's favored eunuchs. Yi Heon remembers him as the man who punished a Ming envoy two years ago for agreeing to stop taking Joseon women as tribute. He wants Yu Kun's true intent found out.

Then Im Song-jae, the Chief Royal Secretary, brings up the rumor about the night before. Yi Heon admits he drank too much and thinks he bestowed his favor on the brazen woman. Instead of gratitude, he complains, her face is full of spite. Song-jae laughs, gets scolded for it, and suggests a gift. Yi Heon offers silk, a hairpin or a ring, but not just anything will do, Song-jae warns. Grand Queen Dowager In-ju prefers books to jewels and Mok-ju prefers jewels to books, so the trick is to learn what this woman likes.

At the morning assembly, the officials lay out a lavish welcome for the envoys, from jesters to poetry on Han River boats. The farewell gifts include 200 pieces of silver, enough to halve the treasury. The envoy is said to be haughty and greedy. Ministers, one of them backing the Chief State Councilor, argue that an excess can be fixed later but a shortfall cannot. Yi Heon cuts the debate off. The coffers hold his people's sweat, he says, and his ministers plan only to cower and pander. He orders the bare minimum of gifts and silver and the plainest possible reception.

Afterward, Shin Su-hyeok, commander of the Urimwi royal guard, reports on Principal Drafter Yi Jang-gyun. He was found unconscious and badly hurt at Banchon Village, with no sign of the draft history. Hidden and treated, he has since vanished, apparently on his own. Yi Heon is sure someone is still hunting him and orders a few quick, tight-lipped soldiers to find him.

A king who will not eat

Chang-seon says Mok-ju asks for an audience and offers to escort the king to Jahongwon, but Yi Heon will see no one today. Mok-ju is choosing butterfly hairpins when she hears he has gone to his chambers instead. She takes it as his answer.

On the walk, Yi Heon remembers his mother, Deposed Queen Yeon, being dragged away. He recalls her lesson that a king must fathom his family, heaven and the hearts of others. An attendant points out that they are on the road to the royal kitchen. The memory of Ji-young feeding him comes back, and he wonders why his thoughts go to her whenever his heart is heavy. In his chambers, he asks himself who would chase Jang-gyun so hard over a draft even the king has never seen. When Mal-im brings the seoksura, the evening meal, he sends it away.

At Jahongwon, Mok-ju hears the king is refusing food, and also that he kissed the chief royal cook. Her attendant blames the drink. Mok-ju does not: every incident has a warning sign, she says, and the cook's very presence is a thorn in her side. If he will not see her, she will go to him. His physical examination is in two days, when his uncle, Grand Prince Jesan, visits. Serving him a meal that day, she reasons, would win back his favor.

In the kitchen, Eunuch Yoon, the kitchen steward, brings word that the king will skip dinner. Ji-young decides to cook for him anyway. Elsewhere, someone tells a cook who failed at the competition that he has one last chance at the top post. The cook is handed arsenic, to slip at the right moment into a meal the gwinyeo makes for the king.

Ji-young keeps cooking, a chicken fricassee and then breakfast, lunch and dinner. One night she stays out in the courtyard alone. Winning La Poêle d'Or, the Paris competition, feels like yesterday, and she hopes her father is not skipping meals the way the king is. In his chambers, Yi Heon pictures her feeding him. He cannot tell whether hunger makes him think of her or thinking of her makes him hungry.

At last he asks Chang-seon when dinner is coming. Ji-young brings a chicken soup, whose name he mangles, with only dongchimi, a mild radish water kimchi, on the side for his stomach. He calls it delicious. She feels oddly proud, and a racing heart gives one of them away.

At his residence, Jesan reminds Kim Yang-son that Yang-son's younger brother, Kim I-son, died in the Muin purge, an earlier purge of scholars, along with Jesan's own friends. Then he demands to know why Yang-son sent a killer after the king in Salgoji Forest without his say-so. Yang-son, who survived the purge only because he was the king's lecturer, thought the chance too good to miss. Jesan says he has stirred up a calm king and endangered them all. He hands over a deed to land in Yeoju and tells him to live as though dead.

Then a shout goes up and a chase begins. Someone slips away, musing that Jesan was behind Kim Yang-son all along and that the stench spreads far. When his man reports losing him again, Jesan warns that the would-be assassin will show himself once more, and the next failure will cost a head.

Schnitzel versus two hens

On the day of the examination, Mok-ju hears the king has started eating the cook's food again. She sends word that she will serve his midday meal herself and has a note taken to Chef Maeng Man-su, one of the senior cooks. The cook, she vows, will learn what happens to anyone who flies too close to the sun.

In the kitchen, Eunuch Yoon delivers prime beef from Banchon Village. Ji-young learns that Jesan, the Superintendent of Saongwon, the office that supplies the royal kitchen, comes with the royal physician to check the king's health. She calls it a checkup. Privately, she recalls that Grand Prince Jinmyeong takes the throne after a revolt, and the name Jesan muddles her history. Mok-ju's court lady orders Chef Maeng to cook two dishes, baekmajatang and hwangjagye hondontang, both made with hens. The king has given no order saying otherwise, so Ji-young will cook her own meal anyway, and she asks Min Gae-deok to assist.

Her dish is schnitzel, which she ends up explaining as a pork cutlet. The meat is pounded thin, floured and dipped in egg. With no breadcrumbs, she presses on snowflake-shaped bits of fried loose batter instead. Fried burdock and raspberry jam go alongside. She quotes a saying: "Even a shoe tastes good when it's fried." Told that a knife on the king's table would cost everyone their heads, she slices the meat in advance.

Mok-ju arrives to inspect the kitchen, and her lady scolds Ji-young for staring at her. Mok-ju says no one can help looking at beauty, then leaves to change her clothes. Behind her, Ji-young's perfect plating is ruined, and she curses Mok-ju as the cooks redo it.

At the examination, the physician finds the king healthy but says he should avoid cold food for a while. Bellflower root extract or braised black beans after meals is floated and approved. Yi Heon needles his uncle, who never visits the kitchen and only cares about his health at the monthly examination.

Then two tables arrive. Yi Heon asks why Mok-ju did not simply tell the kitchen to make one meal, and Ji-young silently gloats. Mok-ju says she did, but the cook went ahead anyway, as if her food would not do. Yi Heon suspects Ji-young cooked because he gave no direct order, and agrees to eat both. Jesan meets the famous Cook Yeon, and someone remarks that she is a great beauty who speaks without fear.

Mok-ju's baekmajatang turns out to be a cold chicken soup against the summer heat, served to a king just told to avoid cold food. Her hondontang, chicken dumplings in yellow-hen broth, is for Jesan's drinker's stomach. Both are made from hens only. Women may look different outside but are the same within, Mok-ju explains, so the king should stay away from them and focus on ruling. Ji-young wonders if she has just been called a hen.

The schnitzel gets misheard as a shiny shell, and Jesan joins in, insisting it is sunchae, an edible water plant. Yi Heon tastes it with tartar sauce and raspberry jam and marvels at the texture, which Ji-young sums up as "crunchy out, chewy in." When Mok-ju sniffs that she shortens everything, Ji-young has a short form for that too: SAS, for Shorten All Sorts.

The burdock is bitter, Jesan says, and the king agrees. Ji-young answers that people throw away bitter roots even though they hold more nutrients. She hopes the king will not judge someone by appearance without looking at their roots. Yi Heon says the burdock cleansed his palate and he will remember the roots.

When rewards are proposed for both women, Mok-ju asks only for the king's health. Ji-young cannot mention her handbag in front of Mok-ju, so she says fresh ingredients make her happy and Saongwon has them. Jesan promises to send her every vegetable he can.

A gift in the greenhouse

Elsewhere, Song-jae tells his father, Im Seo-hong, that the king is already choosing a gift for his cook. The old man reads that as a man besotted. Song-jae knows what she wants: the bundle she lost in Salgoji Forest, which he found and kept. A flashback shows someone puzzling over her South Korean passport. At Bongdeokgung, the royal palace, Song-jae presents the handbag to Yi Heon, saying he sent someone for it the day after the king threw it off the cliff. He adds that Yu Kun is bringing three first-class cooks, which suggests a large demand.

At Byeokjegwan, where the Ming party is being received, Yu Kun refuses his Joseon meal. His Sichuan master chef, Tang Bailong, serves tofu sliced thin as thread and opened into a flower. Word goes back to the king that the envoy cannot eat Joseon food.

Yi Heon takes Ji-young to Jangwonseo, the royal greenhouse, and gives her free use of it. She finds apple and mandarin trees, and almonds hidden in the stones of an ornamental Persian tree. In the poison beds, he warns her off the plants, but she is thrilled to find gochu, chili peppers. A shipwrecked Westerner's gift, they are grown as poison because some who ate them died.

Then he hands her the handbag, claiming he found it on the way, and apologizes for Unyeongjeong. When she asks why, his inner voice answers: "I have begun to see you as a woman." Aloud he credits her cooking. Then he turns and walks off before she can finish her question.

Thoughts

The schnitzel lunch is the show at its best: a cooking contest nobody announced, fought in asides. Mok-ju's two hens are a clever, nasty lesson, and they fail on a technicality the physician handed out minutes earlier. Ji-young's burdock speech about roots is a sharper reply than any insult. She cannot win an open fight with a royal consort, but she can make the king agree with her over a side dish.

The romance moves through hunger. Yi Heon starves himself, catches himself walking toward the kitchen, and finally asks for dinner. His inner voice then admits the thing he denied at breakfast. The greenhouse gift is sweet, though he passes off Song-jae's find as his own. Song-jae's two versions of how he recovered the bag make me trust him less, and his father calling Ji-young a playground set up for the king is chilling.

Meanwhile the knives are out. Someone has been handed arsenic, Gong-gil is tracking the owner of his sister's hairpin, and an eavesdropper now knows Jesan stands behind Kim Yang-son. Gil-geum's attacker wore a court lady's colors, and Mok-ju needed to know whether Gong-gil saw her attendant, so I suspect those threads are one. The Ming envoy refusing Joseon food before he has even met the king suggests the next fight will be in the kitchen.

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