Flavors of Freedom
Insight Myanmar12 Touko 2023

Flavors of Freedom

Episode #164: Yunanda Wilson has warm memories not only of the scrumptious fish noodle dish—known as mohinga—that her grandmother was famous for, but also its place in her family history. Her grandmother was an amazing cook and ran a market stall in Yangon that sold a variety of snacks, and the whole family would go each morning to help her run it.

Yunanda is following in her grandmother’s footsteps, recently launching a career for herself in Asheville, North Carolina, to showcase Burmese cuisine. Calling her company A Thoke Lay, she has a food truck and also caters events, with dreams of one day owning a brick and mortar.


Historically, she goes on to explains how Chinese, Indian, and Thai foods have found their way into Burmese recipes, ultimately describing Burmese cuisine as a kind of Southeast Asia fusion, albeit with a handful of unique dishes like mohinga, fermented tea leaves, and the variety of salads. She describes it as a creative cuisine that balances heat, acid, texture, umami, color, and presentation.


Yunanda also notes how for many Burmese, the realities of poverty and living in fear of the military play a role in how people eat. For example, when the Burmese can’t afford meat or fish, they improvise by adding protein such as chickpea flour, beans, and nuts. And although one might think that living in a state of fear and poverty would bring about greater selfishness in order to survive, Yunanda says it is the exact opposite, as the Burmese people are some of the most generous people in the world.


In closing, Yunanda describes how she wants to “help spread awareness about what's going on in our country, and shed some light on our resilience culture and what are we facing now. I feel this is my way, my path, to helping it

Jaksot(505)

Both Sides Now

Both Sides Now

Episode #459: This is the third episode in a three-part series that emerged from a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU and IDRC. What began...

30 Joulu 20251h 58min

ASEAN in the Balance

ASEAN in the Balance

Episode #458: Lilianne Fan is a long-time Myanmar analyst and advocate who served as an adviser to the ASEAN Special Envoy on Myanmar and as part of Malaysia’s advisory group during its ASEAN chairman...

29 Joulu 20252h 20min

Neither Free Nor Fair

Neither Free Nor Fair

Episode #457: Brang Min, a Kachin State civil society organizer and student activist with the Kachin State Civil Movement; Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a leading organizer and deputy director of the Anti-Sham ...

28 Joulu 20251h 27min

Abandoned in Plain Sight

Abandoned in Plain Sight

Episode #456: “We will not leave them behind,” says Simon Billenness, director of the Campaign for a New Myanmar and a Burma policy advocate with more than three decades of experience lobbying the Uni...

26 Joulu 20252h 8min

The Bloodiest Election

The Bloodiest Election

Episode #455: Mon Zin, a Myanmar-born pro-democracy activist based in Sydney, is a founding member of the Global Myanmar Spring Revolution, a network that coordinates Burmese diaspora communities arou...

25 Joulu 20251h 39min

Into The Mystic

Into The Mystic

Episode #454: In our third episode with U Jāgara, a Canadian monk, he reflects on his journey through decades of meditation practice and teaching, focusing on the adaptation of Burmese meditation trad...

23 Joulu 20251h 48min

Facing a Fraying World

Facing a Fraying World

Episode #453: Patrick Phongsathorn is a human rights advocate and Fortify Rights advocacy specialist working on Myanmar. Raised near London by a Thai–Irish–South African family, he pairs legal rigor w...

22 Joulu 20251h 42min

Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch

Episode #452: “We still had a lot of ideals… but we had some illusions, so to speak.” François Nosten has spent decades on the Thai-Myanmar border, where war, disease, and displacement overlap endless...

19 Joulu 20252h 12min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

aikalisa
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
politiikan-puskaradio
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
tervo-halme
rss-vaalirankkurit-podcast
viisupodi
rss-podme-livebox
otetaan-yhdet
rss-asiastudio
the-ulkopolitist
et-sa-noin-voi-sanoo-esittaa
rss-kaikki-uusiksi
rss-tasta-on-kyse-ivan-puopolo-verkkouutiset
rss-kalevi-sorsa-saation-podcast
rss-polikulaari-pitka-kiekko-ja-muut-ts-podcastit
rss-hyvaa-huomenta-bryssel
rss-merja-mahkan-rahat
rss-kuka-mina-olen
rss-tekkipodi