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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Burmese beyond ‘khao suey’
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Burmese beyond ‘khao suey’

In a refugee settlement in west Delhi, a woman from Myanmar's Chin minority makes a congee that most would not recognize as Burmese

San pyoke. Photographs by Soity BanerjeePremium
San pyoke. Photographs by Soity Banerjee

And so I travelled one and a half hours each way to Janakpuri in west Delhi for Tha Tha’s san pyoke, a simple Burmese congee, at the bottom of which lies the deep, slurry secret to routed hangovers and world peace.

This isn’t my first trip to the area. I have been to the Chin refugee settlement in the urban village of Bodella in Vikaspuri before and to the Chin National Day celebrations on 20 February at Possangipur in Janakpuri.

This time, though, I’m far more certain that my afternoon at the Chanakya Market will be more Burmese than butter chicken. At Tha Tha’s teahouse—with two wooden benches and a clean table lined with plastic baskets of boiled eggs, oily containers of chilli-garlic pastes and flasks of green tea—I walk into what looks like a sorority, women chattering in the multiple dialects of the Chin State, while their husbands and fathers are away at work (hard though it is for refugees to find work: They have no legal rights in this country, since India hasn’t signed the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol).

But before we get distracted by Tha Tha and her congee, here’s a quick question: Can you name more than one dish from Burma, now Myanmar? What if I told you that khao suey as we know it (and spell it) was probably invented in 20th century Bengal? A turn of events that some believe left the original from Shan State so distressed, it appears to let out a permanent sigh now—ohn no khao swè. In The Calcutta Cookbook: A Treasury Of Recipes From Pavement To Palace (Penguin, 1995), authors Minakshie Das Gupta, Bunny Gupta and Jaya Chaliha speculate that the dish was brought across the border by “Bengali families settled in Burma, Anglo-Burmese and many other Indians" after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. A sterling silver lining, if ever there was one.

************

With berry pulaos and litti chokhas flying off the pass faster than you can say Double Patty Mutton Whopper, we’re only just beginning to understand (and taste) the depth of our country’s own diversity. Must we not expand our culinary horizon then to also include an assortment of regional dishes from our immediate neighbours?

For it is odd, surely, that we can tell a laksa from a pho and a maki from a nigiri roll, but quiz us about Burmese or Nepalese or Pakistani cuisine, and we’ll claim you’re anti-national. That said, there’s no such thing as Burmese or Pakistani cuisine of course, just as there’s no such thing as Indian cuisine. What we do have is a clutch of regional specialities.

Which is why Tha Tha is important to this story. Back at her teahouse, Pui and San San, who have more words in English between them than the rest of the party, step in to help me “talk" to Tha Tha. I gather that Tha Tha fled her village (whose name she won’t reveal) near the town of Hakha in the mountainous Chin State in north-western Myanmar, which shares its borders with Mizoram, Manipur and Bangladesh. Separated by 3,000km and seven years of exile, yet fearful of being hunted down, she reluctantly reveals that her father is the only one “left behind".

In India, Tha Tha, her two sons and husband await their passage to a third country (the US), even as they follow every move of the new democratic government in Myanmar. With little hope of return, and scars from the past—the Christian minorities of the Chin State are widely acknowledged to be the poorest, most persecuted people of Myanmar—Tha Tha carries her statelessness with dignity. Offering up steaming bowls of the Chin specialities san pyoke and subuthi, a corn-and-meat soup, and a communal hearth to gather around like the tea stalls back home, Tha Tha’s teahouse is a true refuge for refugees.

It is also one of the few places where you can get a Burmese meal in Delhi—not counting private caterers and restaurants with token khao sueys on the menu. Mumbai is a step ahead with Burma Burma, a two-year-old vegetarian restaurant in Fort, as is Kolkata, where musician and film-maker Anjan Dutt’s wife started Chanda’s Khaukswey in Gol Park last winter.

************

Meanwhile, it turns out, Mizos and Chins share more than just their borders and ancestry (they believe they emerged from under a rock—no, really, they call it the Chhinlung). Relying heavily on maize and rice grown in the highlands, Chin food, like Mizo food, is comforting, if bland, and not too keen on oil, spices or coconut milk. Everything is either boiled or broiled, with no attempt to meddle with what the Mizos call haang, the essence of ingredients. So much so that traditionally, they even eschewed salt.

No longer cut off from the wider world and its flavours, the Chins in Delhi are, ironically, fond of “Burmese food"—a term usually reserved only for the dishes of the Bamars, the dominant ethnic community of Myanmar. In fact, barring the odd subuthi lady, most of the food stalls at the Chin National Day celebrations peddled hearty “majoritarian" bowls of mohinga, the “national dish" of fish and rice noodle soup; pe palata, Burmese paratha with a filling of split Bengal gram; a spicy, tangy chickpea “tofu" salad with grated radish; and a heap of small, flat Burmese samosas…. Here, food (not politics) conquers all.

Chickpea tofu salad.
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Chickpea tofu salad.

Now, if only we could explain our reluctance to steal anything else from the Burmese kitchen. I dare say, with enough inspiration (and ketchup), in 80 years we could have done to lahpet thoke, a lovely, light tea leaf salad, what summer does with the mango trees…. Burmese bhel, anyone?

San Pyoke

Serves 2

Takes 35-40 minutes (or slow-cook it for an hour)

Served at breakfast, often to children and invalids, this life-restoring congee can be eaten by anyone at any time. Served with corn fritters (optional), a condiment of chilli-garlic and boiled eggs, there are several variations. This one is an ode to Tha Tha’s version.

Ingredients

Half cup short-grained rice

1-inch piece of ginger, grated

5-6 cups of water/chicken stock

2-3 pieces of chicken (I used the neck and other “ungainly" pieces)

1 onion, chopped

Salt, to taste

1tsp fish sauce (optional)

6-8 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 dried red chilli, chopped

2tsp oil

2 boiled eggs, sliced

Pepper, freshly ground

Chopped coriander, to garnish

Method

In a pan, boil the first six ingredients. Remove any scum with a spoon. Once the rice begins to disintegrate and the chicken is cooked, discard the bones and shred.

Stir in fish sauce, if using. Separately, in hot oil, fry garlic and chilli, and cook until golden. Serve in a bowl with garlic-chilli oil, chopped coriander, sliced egg and pepper.

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Published: 29 Apr 2016, 09:16 PM IST
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