If you know much about Burmese food, well, first of all, lucky you. This can be an electrifyingly delicious cuisine. But here in southeast Louisiana we just don't have many chances to ever sample it.
However, one dish that has gained wider notice is a salad called lahpet. It’s starred in some of those food-focused travel shows and it’s made appearances on a few menus at more adventurous restaurants too.
The attention is justified. This salad is built around fermented tea leafs. They give an intense sour savor that ricochets around the mouth, along with all the fried peanuts, spicy ginger, tart tomatoes and citrus, the garlic and the cool herbs and cabbage that go into the dish. Lahpet is a good representation of why Burmese cuisine is so exciting.
Lahpet is also the name and signature dish of a pop up eatery in New Orleans, one of many such moveable concepts making the rounds these days. This one, however, comes with a direct connection back to the Burmese people who inspired it and also, unexpectedly, it has built a bridge to a tiny Burmese community here in the New Orleans area too.
Lahpet was created by New Orleans musician Mark LaMaire. He’s not Burmese, but he runs a nonprofit called One World Family that helps people in the refugee villages that have grown along the Thai border after many years of strife and war in Myanmar, the official name of Burma for the past few decades. Specifically, One World Family helps children in these villages reach schools and continue their education.
LaMaire learned to love Burmese cooking while pursuing that work overseas, and he learned to cook some of it too. He also hatched the idea to bring these Burmese flavors back to New Orleans, with a pop up that could introduce more people to the cuisine here at home and help raise money for One World Family’s work on the other side of the globe.
Along the way, the emergence of a source of Burmese food in New Orleans struck a chord with local advocates working with refugees in southeast Louisiana. There isn’t a huge Burmese refugee presence here, but neither are there many other expressions of their culture to tap for support.
So, connections made at Lahpet events have helped Burmese refugees find translators, get a rare taste of home in an unfamiliar land and open doors to others who share their heritage in the area. There are bigger plans on the horizon, including a brick-and-mortar version of Lahpet in New Orleans, a Burmese restaurant that could one day provide jobs for refugees living here.
That’s for the future. For now, Lahpet holds periodic pop-up events and benefit dinners. Its menus show the contours of a cuisine that draws influences from Thailand, China and India while carving its own distinct niche. That comes out in rippling fresh tropical salads, mellow curries, fried snacks and an abundance of nuts and noodles, fermented sauces and fresh herbs.
It’s a fascinating cuisine to explore. And in the case of our local Lahpet, it’s another example of the power of food to bring together a community, even one that few people knew was here until the dinner bell started ringing.
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Lahpet Benefit Dinner
Where: Milkfish, 125 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 267-4199; www.milkfishnola.com
When: July 22, seatings at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
What: a dinner featuring seven courses of traditional Burmese dishes to benefit One World Family International’s Burmese Refugee Education Initiative. Tickets are $50 each. For details see www.burmesedinnernola.eventbrite.com
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