Bon Appétit, Your Majesty Episode 9 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
Seo Yi-sook as Grand Queen Dowager In-ju
Shin Eun-jung as Queen Dowager Jahyeon
Oh Eui-sik as Im Song-jae
Jang Gwang as Chang-seon
Park Joon-myun as Choi Mal-im
Kim Kwang-kyu as Eom Bong-sik
Hong Jin-gi as Maeng Man-su
Kim Hyun-mok as Min Gae-deok
Jo Jae-yoon as Tang Bailong
Moon Seung-you as Ya Feixiu

At Huijeongdang, the hall hosting the cook-off with the Ming, the round two scores go up: one point for Joseon's Peking duck, eight for the Ming temple dish. King Yi Heon praises the temple food of Tang Bailong, the Ming master of Sichuan cuisine, then declares the score invalid. Yu Kun, the Ming chief envoy, marked Joseon down only to guarantee a Ming win, he says. The Ming side counters that the rules only ask each nation to score the other's dish. The king answers that a contest is pointless if its judges cannot taste honestly, and that such tricks shame even the Ming cooks. His fix is to have each team taste its own dish and score itself, keeping in mind that people rarely see their own flaws. Yeon Ji-young, his chief royal cook, cannot believe it.

The cooks judge their own dishes

Yi Heon praises Ji-young's duck as a fine answer to the theme of change and asks for her score. She apologizes and says she cannot give one. Chef Maeng Man-su, Chef Eom Bong-sik, Min Gae-deok, Shim Mak-jin and the kitchen maid Seo Gil-geum all poured themselves into it, so she has no right to judge. Tang Bailong also declines: he learned temple cooking from Joseon's monks, and it is not his to rate. The dishes were equal, Yi Heon says, so he wanted to see the cooks' hearts, and those prove equal too. He declares a draw. Yu Kun approves, because under the terms set after round one, three draws hand the contest to the Ming.

Afterward, Tang and Ji-young each claim to have lost and won at once. He gave his dish depth but could not win the first bite; she won the bite but lacked depth. Neither will give an inch, and they end up laughing. Ji-young tells her puzzled cooks that a fair vote would have gone to Joseon, but the Ming dish is the one people will remember. The cooks decide the Ming's top chef has acknowledged her, and she insists the credit is shared. Then Chang-seon, the king's chief eunuch, brings a summons from Yi Heon.

That night, Yi Heon serves her tangerine-leaf tea in a cup that catches the moon, which he calls moon tea. He worries about her injured wrist. Fine cuts are hard, she admits, but she can cook, and she trusted her team. She asks why he thought self-scoring would help, since a fair score would have won. He agrees she did exceptionally well and confesses that, like Yu Kun, he was tempted to give her full marks and the rivals one point. Staking the country on a cooking contest was his mistake, he says, and he offers to cancel round three and even bow to the envoy.

Ji-young refuses. Watching both kitchens give everything has made her want to win for him, and she trusts Jang Chun-saeng, the craftsman building her pressure cooker, to arrive in time. When she touches something hot and yelps, Yi Heon sends for the royal physician and makes her promise not to get hurt again, because her pain hurts him more.

Elsewhere, Chief State Councilor Han Min-seong tells a royal listener, addressed as Your Royal Highness, that a guess about the envoy was right. The Ming cooks are berated for two draws in a row. In the royal kitchen, wild ginseng, far rarer than the ordinary root, turns up among the ingredients and leaves Chef Maeng asking where anyone found it.

Chun-saeng drops in with the lid

The next day, Im Song-jae, the Chief Royal Secretary, opens the final round: tang and sam, a soup with ginseng. The Ming choose Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. Ji-young's team will make ogolgye samgyetang, a ginseng soup built on ogolgye, the black-boned chicken. As she hands out jobs, the cooks ask what happens if the pot never comes. Plan B, she says, which they hear as pullan-bee: the cast-iron cauldron, harder but workable.

Across the hall, Kong Wenli, the third Ming chef, brings out deer tendon soaked in oil for days. Houtoujun, an old name for lion's mane mushroom, follows, with sea cucumber, abalone and a white ginseng said to come only by ancestral blessing. Yi Heon recognizes the monkey-head mushroom, and a Ming voice says it knew a gourmet king would. The soup, the Ming explain, is so fragrant a monk would leap a wall for it. The Joseon cooks stuff and truss their chickens, then wait, while Ji-young silently begs Chun-saeng to hurry.

When the bell rings again, the team gives up, and at Ji-young's word Chef Eom fires the cast iron. Then the guards shout about a strange bird in the sky, and Shin Su-hyeok, commander of the Urimwi royal guard, puts everyone on alert. The bird is Chun-saeng on a flying contraption, crash-landing in the palace grounds. He is rushed to the hall, where the cooks cheer, and hands Ji-young the lid. He warns that it has weakened and the heat should stay low. She wants it as hot as it goes. Losing, the argument runs, would be more dangerous.

The Ming keep their fire gentle, and Ya Feixiu, Tang's niece, is told to stay calm. Joseon goes the other way. At 1.5 atmospheres water boils at 110 degrees, Ji-young explains, but she wants two atmospheres and 120 degrees, so every stick of firewood goes in. Half an hour later the pot is shrieking. The Ming side warns that it could explode, and Yi Heon replies that his chief royal cook will handle it. The lid holds.

A soup with wild ginseng

Joseon finishes early, which the Ming find suspicious, and Ji-young credits science. She poaches glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in ogolgye skin, stuffs morels with minced meat, pours on the wild-ginseng broth and adds crisp scorched rice. Tang sets his soup on a plate of salt doused in alcohol, adds a dragon carving and lights it.

Ji-young calls her dish Samgyetang with Ogolgye that Ate Wild Ginseng. The Ming side sniffs that it lacks elegance. Then Yu Kun tastes it and, in a burst of fantasy, meets a phoenix. Yi Heon praises the tender, bone-free meat and the ginseng rising from the broth, and Yu Kun admits it is a delight without equal. The Ming soup, with its tendon, sea cucumber, lion's mane and ginseng, earns the same rapture, and Yu Kun crows that it is worthy of Ming.

This time each cook rates the other nation's dish, up to ten points apiece. Yu Kun apologizes for the previous day and accepts the king's method. The Joseon cooks find the Ming soup every bit as nourishing as theirs, then notice that Kong Wenli has not touched anything. The Ming confirm that since reaching the top of his craft he has been unable to eat, so he cannot score. With Joseon's total in doubt, Yu Kun turns the king's words around and asks him to judge impartially.

Kong Wenli's rough bowl

Ji-young decides Kong Wenli looks guilty about eating and might manage something that is not a finished dish. Over her cooks' protests, she throws things together into one rough bowl. Cooking should make both the cook and the eater happy, she tells him, and she made this so he could enjoy it too. He remembers his grandmother saying the best food in the world is everything tossed in a pot and boiled. He eats, then weeps and laughs. He has not had this flavor in ten years, he explains. He chased her stew until he could cook perfectly without tasting, and the better he got, the less he could eat. Ji-young says she cooked with his well-being in mind, as his grandmother surely did. A cook who makes himself and others happy is a true gentleman, he answers, and concedes: "I have lost to you."

The Joseon cooks give the Ming 27 points, and the Ming give Joseon 28. Joseon wins the contest, and the kitchen erupts. Ji-young teaches a Ming cook the handshake, both sides hope for a rematch someday, and Chef Eom attempts a thank-you in Chinese.

A headbutt and a letter from Ming

Yu Kun surrenders the ginseng mining rights as promised, then asks for one tribute to take home: Ji-young herself, to serve the emperor as a tribute woman. The court is outraged. Yi Heon starts laughing, Yu Kun laughs along, and the king headbutts him. Nursing a bloody nose, the envoy shrieks about an insult to the emperor. Yi Heon calls it a Joseon greeting. When Yu Kun still moves to take her, the king says he should have brought 100,000 soldiers to make it worth his while. Asked whether he dares defy the emperor's envoy, Yi Heon says, "I most certainly do."

Grand Queen Dowager In-ju, the king's grandmother, sweeps in. She warns Yi Heon against rash acts, then turns on Yu Kun for neglecting his duties for a reckless contest. When he claims the emperor sent him for ginseng and tribute women, she produces a letter from her aunt, Consort Yeon, second consort of the late emperor. The claim collapses. Yu Kun admits he deceived the emperor, begs forgiveness and swears by the heavens to keep his promise, then announces the delegation's departure.

In a private room, the Grand Queen Dowager scolds the king: without that letter, things would have spun out of control, and the country is not his alone. He promises restraint. Then she asks a favor. Grand Prince Jinmyeong, the king's young half-brother, wants to taste the chief royal cook's food, and Yi Heon agrees to a meal the next day.

Lunch with Grand Prince Jinmyeong

At the residence of Grand Prince Jesan, the king's uncle, the news becomes a weapon. Kang Mok-ju, the king's long-serving consort, says the plan is already under way. Jinmyeong was meant to be an asset to them, and Jesan asks whether she will really sacrifice the boy. Ridding themselves of the cook and setting off the king's temper is worth it, comes the reply. When he warns that poison leaves a trail, she says only a known poison does, and this was not poison to begin with. He admits he expected her to betray him by now. She says she owes him her decent life, and he promises to make her his official wife.

At Gangnyeongjeon, the king's quarters, Yi Heon orders army camps in all eight provinces searched for deserters and men who changed regiments. It is not about his attackers, he says, but about treason.

That night, Ji-young and Gil-geum stretch out, exhausted. Gil-geum loved the contest; Ji-young notes she was nearly dragged off to Ming, then catches herself worrying over Joseon's ginseng like a local. As Gil-geum snores, she admits she has grown fond of all of it, the king included. As a caption reading Mangunrok, the old book that brought her to Joseon, appears on screen, Yi Heon's voice tells her she did well.

The next day, she jokes to Yi Heon that the physician gave her little time to live, and he does not laugh. Her hand is better. The lunch will be a buttered whole roast ogolgye with ginseng, and he asks for macarons for his young brother. He calls the spot good for a meal with her, just the two of them, and she flusters. Then he gives her a new cook's uniform in bright colors. Her delight dims when she remembers she must leave once she finds the book. Yi Heon asks who said she may leave, and adds that she will need a uniform either way. He asks her to meet him at Jangwonseo, the palace greenhouse, after lunch. She has a farewell with the Ming cooks first, and he relents on condition she is not late.

Yi Heon sits down with Jinmyeong for their first meal together and invites the shy boy to call him brother when they are alone. Choi Mal-im, the king's senior court lady, announces the food. Ji-young presents the bird, stuffed with glutinous rice, jujubes, chestnuts and milk vetch and roasted whole in butter, with a Joseon-style mustard sauce for dipping. Jinmyeong calls it a taste he has never known and tells Ji-young the rumors are true. Watching the brothers laugh, Ji-young wonders whether this gentler king means the purge will never happen, and whether she has changed history.

Later, she sees off the Ming chefs with gifts, including ginseng for Feixiu. The three will each travel alone to study cooking. Before they go, someone on the Ming side leaves a message for the king: sharp edges are often hidden, and he should lock the latch tight when he sleeps. Nobody can explain it, and it leaves Ji-young uneasy.

Then Queen Dowager Jahyeon, the king's stepmother and Jinmyeong's mother, storms in and slaps Ji-young. Her only son is near death after eating the cook's chicken, she says. Ji-young protests that her food could not do that, but Queen Jahyeon has her dragged off for interrogation while Jinmyeong lies wheezing. Somewhere in the palace, Mok-ju laughs as an attendant reports that the lady physician has been moved to a hiding place. At the interrogation, Queen Jahyeon orders Ji-young's legs twisted, and her screams close the hour.

Thoughts

The self-scoring gambit is a lovely bit of character writing disguised as a rule change. Yi Heon cannot out-cheat Yu Kun without becoming him, so he hands the verdict to the two people in the hall with the most pride, and both refuse to take it. The moon-tea scene then lets him admit he was tempted to cheat too, which is the most honest he has been about how much he wants her to win. Kong Wenli's bowl is the episode's emotional peak. Making a descendant of Confucius cry over a thrown-together stew, and winning him over with talk of the gentleman's virtue, is a smart way to beat a man who has stopped eating.

The rescue is less satisfying. The headbutt is pure Yi Heon and very funny, but the Grand Queen Dowager arriving with a letter from a relative in the Ming imperial harem solves the envoy problem in about three minutes. I'll take it, because it clears the stage for the real threat. The plotters' claim that their weapon was never poison to begin with points to something ordinary turning deadly, and the vanished lady physician suggests the frame was planned well before the lunch.

The cruelest touch is timing. Ji-young wonders whether she has changed history at the very table where it is being turned against her, and the Ming warning about hidden blades and a locked latch arrives minutes too late to mean anything. Yi Heon is already hunting traitors in the army camps. I suspect he is looking in the wrong direction, and I want to see how he answers a queen dowager who has his cook under torture.

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