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