Episode 8
24 Jul 2008 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Episode 8
Jang-Geum returns.Everyone’s happy to see her back except a couple of troublemakers. The ‘soo-rah-gan’(kitchen dept.)is busy preparing for the food exam.The exam consists of 2 parts.In the first part the girls are supposed to be quizzed on their scholarship. In the second part the girls need to show off their cooking skills but the ingredients are limited.Therefore the ones who do well in the first part of the exam get to pick the ingredients first while the rest that don’t do well will have to cook with the remaining less-desirable ingredients.
During the two-part exam, the supervising palace lady asks a question using a poem that reads “clothes but not clothes, head but not head, human but not human” and the cook girls are supposed to figure out what food dish the proverb is referring to Geum-young (hong ri-na) gets the answer right away, and then other girls get it, but Jang-Geum and a few others didn’t get it before the time is up. The answer is “dumplings” (because it looks like a head, wears clothes, but it’s not a person)The reason Jang-Geum didn’t get it is because she was gone while one of the superiors(Lady Han sang goon)explained the metaphor to the kitchen girls.
So the girls take turns picking out ingredients that will be used next day for the cooking exam. A bunch of new girls with lower ranking come to help to make new clothes for them if they pass the exam.Jang-Geum is assigned a really young girl.Who happens(secretively)to be the daughter of one of the Queen assistant.Jang-Geum finds out that her flour is stolen by someone when she went to check the ingredients during the night.It’s devastating because everyone is supposed to make dumplings the next day and without flour you can’t make the dumpling skin.So Jang-Geum went to looks for her flour and tells her boss that her portion has been stolen and asks for more but she’s told that’s not allowed. And she has to make do with what she has left.When jang-geum finds out the one who stole her flour is the new young girl.Jang-geum goes to the kitchen and sees the girl making dumpling soup.The two girls start arguing.When the guards hear them they go into the kitchen and ask what’s going on.Master Min jung-ho is one of the guards since he is one of the supervising guards. The girl confesses that she stole the flour because her mother will be sent away after the exam(forced retirement due to old age)and she will never get to see her again and her mother’s favorite food was dumpling soup so she’s making the farewell supper for her mother.The guard leader is shocked that a palace girl has a mother inside the palace(Which is not allowed; Geum-Young’s maternal identity is also kept a secret.)They decide to hush matter up since the mother has been a good worker.And so Jang-Geum is left without flour the next morning.She spends all night trying to figure out how to make dumplings without flour.During the exam she makes dumpling with steamed cabbage as skin. One of the judges really likes her creativity but the rest of the judges think it’s not worth passing especially since she has lost her ingredient.
The kitchen supervisor announces names of the girls who passed the exam.The ones that didn’t pass have to pack their bags right away to leave the palace.They’re cutting down the staff so as to trim all unnecessary palace girls.One by one the names are called.Geum-Young got the highest marks but the supervisor starts to read a list of people who DIDN’T pass and she reads the name “Seo Jang-Geum”.
