Sakura of DOOM

Jang Geum is known as being the only female royal doctor in Korean history; we know of her from brief mentions in Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (which, btw, from the book on Joseon royal court culture that I read, is a pretty freaking amazing document in terms of breadth and scope and effort). From what I got off Wiki, some people speculate that Jang Geum in the Annals is an amalgamation of various female court physicians.

The drama opens with a plotline that I think could have been cut, though it gives a good sense of the intrigue and politics that we'll see later on. Eventually, when we are introduced to Jang Geum, she's a court lady in the royal kitchens.

I mean, I knew she was going to be a doctor and I vaguely remembered something about the royal kitchens, but no one told me about the massive amounts of food porn! There are scenes of the court ladies serving banquets to crowds of people, each individual getting their own tray. There are close-ups of a court lady creating a midnight snack for the king from scraps of ingredients. There are bits that are straight out of shounen, in which the various young court ladies are tested to determine what ingredients a dish is made out of by a single taste (of course Jang Geum is the bestest).

So far, I am not invested in any of the characters so far, largely because Jang Geum is too perfect to be interesting. All her flaws are ones that demonstrate how precocious and good she is at things, though I have to say, I am glad that while there are female rivals among the court ladies, frequently there's a challenge to the kitchen as a whole, and all the kitchen court ladies must team up and figure things out.

I love the details and the looks into the daily lives of people in the palace, no matter how dramatized they are (big crisis: the princess will not eat!), so will stick with this a little more.

Also, it helps that my library has the DVDs ;).