History of Myanmar / Burma for Foodies ● National Dish Mohinga & Lahpet Thoke

Compared to cuisine of its neighbours like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, India and China, Myanmnese food is relatively obscure to foreigners.

Most people overseas would not have heard of, let alone tasted mohinga or lahpet thoke, both considered Myanmar's national dishes eaten throughout the 676 thousand sq km (larger than France) country of 54 million people, and more than 130 ethnicities.

Myanmese cuisine is unique due to its geography and history going back as far as 10,000 BC when humans first settled here during the stone age.

By 1500 BC, people were growing rice and raising chicken and pigs in Burma. The 2,288 km long Irrawaddy River running the entire length of the country from the northern highlands to the Andaman Sea in the south is rich with fish and other river life.

Most people live in the vast Irrawaddy Plains shielded on the west, north and east by high ground, and the Irrawaddy River Delta which fans out to the Andaman Sea.

Burma has a blessed natural landscape.

Myanmar's recorded history began with Tibeto-Burman settlers from southwest China who founded small Theravada Buddhist kingdoms known as Pyu city-states.

Chinese records mentioned 18 such peaceful city-states, the southernmost one at today's Pyay city along the Irrawaddy River 250 km northwest of Yangon (capital of Burma 1948 - 2006). Located on the overland trade route between India and China, the Pyu city-states prospered from 200 BC to 900 AD.

From the 800s, the Bamar people from mountainous west China (Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan provinces) migrated south and founded the Pagan kingdom which later unified the disparate (though peaceful) Pyu kingdoms under the Pagan empire (1044 - 1297), thus forming the foundation of today's Myanmar.

The Bamar people now make up 65% of Myanmar's population. Other ethnic groups such as Mon, Rakhine, and Shan make up the remainder 130 ethnicities.

Mohinga and lappet thoke, the national dishes of Myanmar are both Bamar dishes.

Nearly four hundred years of relative peace under the Pagan, Burmese language and culture took root which endured to this day. Pagan rule from the 11th to 13th century is considered the golden age of Myanmar. The Pagan kings built thousands of pagodas throughout their empire with over 2,000 still standing in the old capital Bagan alone.

The Myanmese have a saying, "Of all fruit, mango. Of all meat, pork. Of all leaves, lahpet".

Lahpet or fermented / pickled tea leaves is eaten with various nuts, seeds, dried shrimp, etc., served in small dishes or a tray. Tea is grown in the hills of Myanmar - there are about 70,000 hectares of tea plantations in Myanmar and most of the 80 million kg produced annually are for local consumption.

Lahpet is the central ingredient in Lahpet Thoke or fermented tea leaf salad - considered a national dish of Myanmar.

Laphet Thoke is salad made by mixing and tossing fermented or pickled tea leaves with tomato, cabbage, lime, dried shrimp, fried nuts, seeds and oil together.

It's a fascinating mix of crunchy, chewy, soft, tender, crisp, juicy, moist, and greasy jumble of textures.

The dominant flavour is sourish savoury bitter from the picked tea leaves with umami from dried shrimp, taste of raw vegetables, nuttiness of fried nuts such as peanut, chickpeas, sesame seed, etc. There are also chili pepper, fish sauce and peanut oil in the salad. As lahpet can be a little dry, oil tended to be used liberally, so lahpet thoke is a relatively greasy salad.

The westward expansion of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty of China reached Pagan in 1278. The Pagan resisted valiantly for a decade before it succumbed 1287 - its empire broken up into small disparate feuding kingdoms. The larger of these fragments (kingdoms) were Ava, Hanthawaddy, Arakan and Shan states.

It was nearly three hundred years later in the 1500s that Myanmar was reunited under the Taungoo empire (1510 - 1752) which at its zenith was the largest in Southeast Asia.

Mohinga or rice noodles in fish soup is also considered a national fish of Myanmar. It is a dish of the Bamar people, the largest ethnicity in Myanmar. Mohinga is a dish of the Irrawaddy (while lahpet thoke is a dish of the hills).

The rice noodles used can be thin, thick (rice vermicelli) or flat (kway teow).

The thick sauce over the rice noodles is made by boiling chopped fish (usually catfish), yellow split pea, chopped onion, shallot, banana stem, lemongrass, garlic, ginger, chili powder, toasted rice powder, turmeric powder, prawn paste, fish sauce, etc together. The sauce tastes mainly savoury, spicy, with a bit of sweetness and sourness.

The noodle with soup is often eaten with fried chickpea fritters.

Mohinga is a tedious, time consuming dish to make with lots of required ingredients. If there is a hawker or restaurant making and serving mohinga near you, consider it your good fortune.

In the late 1700s, the Taungoo empire gave way to the Konbaung empire (1752 - 1885) which engaged in wars with Ayutthaya (Siam) in its east, Qing (China) in the north and also the British (India) in its west.

Defeat in the Anglo-Burmese wars in 1885 brought Myanmar under British colonial rule (as part of British India) which lasted till 1948. The British exiled the last Burmese king Thibaw in Ratnagiri in West India where he died and was buried there in 1916.

After independence from the British in 1948, various governments had difficulty keeping rebellious groups in its periphery under control (reminiscent of the restive period between Pagan and Taungoo empires). Alternating between unity and fragmentation is a recurring theme in Myanmar history.

The country was named Burma on independence in 1948 but was renamed Myanmar in 1989.

Since 1962, the Myanmese army played a central role in Burma's politics.

Myanmar is today relatively inaccessible, so most people can only taste Myanmese cuisine outside of Myanmar. For example, in Singapore, Myanmese eateries opened to cater to Myanmese workers, students and emigre.

In Singapore, there is a cluster of Myanmese shops and restaurants in Peninsula Plaza known as Little Myanmar 👈 click

If you want to try mohinga and lahpet thoke together in one food stall you can come to Blk 325, Clementi Ave 5 👈 click

References:

A short history of Burma

Official history of Myanmar

The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma

History of Burma by G. E. Harvey

Highlights of Burmese Cuisine