"Finished in 10 minutes" and "super simple recipes" were once seen as the winning formula for cooking content, but recently demand has grown for finding cooking methods that fit one's own tastes and lifestyle. Eunsujeo, a cooking creator with 680,000 subscribers, met with ChosunBiz on July 14 and said, "Some people just want to finish as quickly as possible, while others will spend even 24 hours to make the food they want," adding, "I have felt that demand for cooking is becoming increasingly personalized."
The "Eunsujeo Cup Cooking Contest" that Eunsujeo hosted drew out these segmented cooking tastes into content. Subscribers sent in their own recipes and stories, Eunsujeo made the dishes personally, and then other cooking creators recreated the final candidate menus in the championship round.
A total of 571 recipes were submitted to the contest. In the finals held on the 14th last month, five teams—Working Yonghyeong, Magic Boy Chef Kim, Matsuryeong, 10,000-won Cooking Choi Siblings, and Chef Jang Hojun—competed to complete their assigned dishes by drawing lots within 100 minutes. The subscribers who sent in the recipes guided the cooking in real time via video calls. The overall winner was "Hainan chicken rice" by Yoon Seok-jun, recreated by the 10,000-won Cooking Choi Siblings.
The Eunsujeo Cup Cooking Contest shows YouTube's nature as a platform where creators and subscribers make content together. Subscribers didn't just watch videos; they contributed ideas and joined the cooking process, and the fandoms of multiple cooking creators were linked around a single project. The following is a Q&A with Eunsujeo.
— What led you to hold a cooking contest using subscriber recipes?
"I usually called chefs or skilled cooks to ask about the methods they use in their kitchens. I didn't want to stop at learning on my own; I wanted to share various tips with people who love cooking. That's how the 'phone cooking content' was created. Since restaurant recipes often take two or three hours, I thought subscribers' home recipes would be easier. But in reality, they required even more steps and had many unique methods."
— You even had a subscriber who said they could cook for 16 hours.
"One subscriber said, 'I have free time on weekends, so why finish a dish in two or three hours? I can cook for 16 hours.' I kept receiving unexpected methods to the point I called them 'eccentric recipes,' and the scale of the contest grew bigger than I first imagined."
— What criteria did you use to select the final recipes from the 571 entries?
"In the preliminaries, I placed importance on the stories sent with the recipes. From a content creator's perspective, it matters who is behind the dish and why they came to make it. I tried to find entrants with fun stories and delicious recipes. To make it to the main round, we looked at whether the story came through well, and in the end, we chose based on taste."
— Why did you have subscribers explain the methods via video call?
"The core of this contest was that it was content made together with subscribers. If only cooking creators competed, I thought it wouldn't be much different from existing cooking contests. Having subscribers explain the methods step by step over the phone is also an extension of 'phone cooking,' which is how my channel started. I wanted them not to stop at sending in a recipe, but to take part directly in making the final result."
— The contest videos seem to have a more relaxed vibe than cooking survival shows.
"I got the idea for the format from cooking survival programs. You finish the dish within 100 minutes and taste it as soon as it's ready. But I didn't want to make the videos feel overly heavy. I don't think YouTube is only for content you sit down and watch with full attention. I wanted videos you could watch on the bus without earphones and without pressure. Rather than perfecting every scene, I tried to capture the natural feel of being on site."
— What changes in cooking content did you confirm through this contest?
"People didn't only want easy, fast cooking. Some want to finish quickly, but others will spend a whole day to get the taste they want. Tastes and methods vary far more by person, and I think demand for cooking is becoming increasingly personalized."
— Are you preparing the next season?
"This contest was on a scale I couldn't manage alone, and team members all took part in filming and editing. As a channel operator, it was a big gamble, but it became a chance for the whole team to grow. Doing the same thing every time would be boring, right? I'm already planning the next season. Next time, I want to ease up a bit while keeping the core of making it together with subscribers."