The Author –
I was born in Burma/Myanmar and moved here to US when I was 16. The first dish I ever made was fried rice when I was 12. I’m hands on person and I enjoy food in general. I like all kinds of food but I always find myself going back to Burmese food. I think I eat Burmese food at least once a day even here in US. Whenever I came back from vacation, the first dish I would ever eat at home is Burmese. I can’t count how many times I cook like a mad person cooking several Burmese dishes after a vacation with no Burmese food in sight during said vacation. It always brings me joy and makes me feel nostalgic whenever I eat Burmese food.
Now that I have a family, I do not have as much time as I used to but I still cook Burmese food from scratch because it gives me peace, a calm feeling and overall happiness. Although I left Burma when I was a teenager, I still remember those fond memories of Burmese food growing up. I remembered ordering sticky rice inside bamboo stick at night market, I remembered ordering “mote lin ma yar” on my way to home from school in the evening as a snack, I remembered getting my Indian inspired Burmese tea (which is very different than Indian tea) so that I could stay awake at night to study for final exam because Burmese tea are so strong, I remembered eating “La Phet thoat” or tea leaf salad at the local shop after biking at night with my sisters and her friends and I remembered begging to go with Dad to the night tea shop and playing with tea cups after I ate bread with “ma line” or half boiled egg or fried rice with bean and beef on the side till late at night and my dad had to carry me home because I would be sleeping by then. There are many happy memories growing up in Burma/Myanmar and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. When my parents told me I would be going to US, I didn’t want to just because. I didn’t even think about how much I would miss Burmese food until I got here in US and saw how scarce Burmese ingredients are. Like everything else, when there’s a will there is a way. There are a lot of Burmese here in US and we make do with what we can find here in US or we bring our own ingredients from Burma to here risking fines and fees carrying across the ocean just like many other immigrants before us did – Italians, Chinese, Thai and many more. I have heard so many stories from my fellow Burmese about getting caught with these Burmese food items at US customs as well. Within the local Burmese community, we share where we can find the closest Burmese ingredients at our other fellow Asian Grocers and though some people share without a second thoughts, some are quiet stingy with the information.
I remembered when we used to live in New York, a lot of Burmese go to Indian market in Queens to get “Chin paung” or small mangoes to eat as condiments. For a person who live in Brooklyn, that is quiet far and going to Queens is a one day trip where we have to aim to get all the possible food items we could possibly carry back to Brooklyn. That is quiet a debacle now that I’m thinking back. So whenever we have family friends coming from Queens, we always ask for favors to bring some items with them so we can stretch out eating Burmese food. Our motto truly was “anything for food!” It is funny to think that now but at the time, it was the most inconvenient and it took a lot of effort but we still go out of our way to get ingredients to cook Burmese food because that is the closest thing we have to home. The smell of Burmese food bring a piece of us back to us – our happiest moments back home.
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