"I heard that fireflies often sit on mugwort. So I put mugwort in the spring cookies."
On the 10th, in Muju County, North Jeolla, I met Kang Kyung-mi, 44, head of LUCIOLE&. She kneaded mugwort to bake spring and sprinkled powdered sugar over black sesame to depict winter. The dessert that captures the scenery of the four seasons and completes it that way is "Deogyusando." It is the signature product of the agricultural corporation LUCIOLE& that Kang runs.
The name LUCIOLE& is said to have been inspired by Luciole, which means firefly in French. Muju is a prime firefly habitat in Korea, with high elevation, vast forests, pristine valleys, and a well-preserved ecosystem. Thanks to pure water, clean air, and little light pollution—the natural conditions fireflies need—"the night of Muju" glows with the light of fireflies.
Deogyusando is in the form of a French baked confection, a dacquoise. The outside is crisp and the inside is soft. It faithfully reflects Muju's farm produce across the four seasons: mugwort in spring, corn in summer, apples in fall, and black sesame in winter. The snowy winter of Mount Deogyu is expressed with white powder heaped on a black sesame cookie. "Putting Muju in a box" is the very philosophy of Deogyusando.
As desserts that capture local character draw attention, like Sungsimdang's Bomunsan Echo Bread in Daejeon, Muju's Deogyusando is also gaining notice as a new "local specialty." Deogyusando has become the official gift set of Muju County and is used as the official dessert supplied for local events such as the Muju Firefly Festival, taekwondo competitions, and the Mountain Village Film Festival. Kang said, "I hope people will remember Muju through Deogyusando and want to come back."
Kang was born and raised in Muju. She is active as a woman farmer and the head of a food manufacturing company. Together with her mother-in-law, Park Sun-ja, she has preserved the region's homemade flavors by running the restaurant Cheonji Garden for nearly 30 years. She also drew attention when she competed as the North Jeolla representative on the national cooking competition program Korean Food War Season 3.
Since then, she has planned and launched a variety of products using Muju-grown materials and supplies such as wild grapes, gastrodia elata, mugwort, and corn, including cookies, bread, fruit syrups, pickles, juices, and gift sets. Behind these efforts was the Rural Development Administration's Special Local Product Convergence Technology Support Project. It is a program that helps agricultural corporations build processing capabilities for farm products to increase added value.
Kang said, "It's a heavy burden to set up processing equipment or roll out new products with only personal investment, but with government support and professional consulting, I was able to reduce the risk of failure and take on the challenge with confidence." In fact, LUCIOLE& automated its previously hand-centered cookie production and established a factory system capable of producing hundreds per day.
The philosophy of capturing the taste of Muju shows from the materials and supplies. Beyond Deogyusando, there is a variety of breads and cookies that use representative Muju farm products such as wild grapes and gastrodia elata. Gastrodia elata, whose strong aroma makes it hard to eat as is, is steamed several times and added to the dough to be reborn as "gastrodia bread," and there is also a salt bread topped with "gastrodia salt," a blend of roasted gastrodia powder and salt. Various processed foods such as wild grape juice and bokbunja syrup are also made entirely from local farm products.
Currently, LUCIOLE& operates a directly managed 2,700-square-meter farm in Muju and contracts with nearby farms totaling 3,000 square meters. "Soybean leaves, perilla leaves, and bracken that village elders harvest are the roots of our products," Kang emphasized. They also actively rely on help from older residents. "Many elders like to sit and trim soybean leaves. It naturally leads to local jobs."
Kang personally designed and carried out the entire process: directly cultivating local farm products like wild grapes, dried red peppers, gastrodia elata, and soybean leaves (primary), processing them into items such as wild grape juice, Deogyusando, and pickles (secondary), and then operating a restaurant and offering experiences and sales (tertiary).
Holding certifications in Korean cuisine, Western cuisine, and baking and pastry, she also runs a hands-on baking program near the factory that makes cookies and bread with Muju-grown farm products. The cookie-making class that uses seasonal ingredients is said to be popular with family visitors with children. From planning and production to promotion, and even experiential activities that showcase the local flavors, she is becoming a living model of "sixth-order industry" in her daily life.
Kang said, "Going forward, we plan to expand online sales and connect premium gift sets using wild grape wine and gastrodia products with local tourism products," adding, "We want to be a brand that truly captures the taste of Muju."