WEBVTT

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I'm going to put up a photo
of my all-time favorite food.

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Now, if you agree with me,
that this food is also your favorite,

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all I want is for you to cheer;

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give it a big clap, give it
a big 'whoop, whoop', whatever.

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If you don't like it,
you are allowed to boo.

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It's the only booing you'll be doing today

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so, if you like that type of thing
then, this is your opportunity.

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Okay, so here we go.

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(Cheers)

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Yes!

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(Applause)

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There's a few people who are not having
any form of food today.

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Anyway, this one fruit

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has the ability to show us
how powerful the act of eating can be.

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Some of you, I know
you're looking at this photo

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and you're probably wondering
if I bought any for lunch today.

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I wasn't allowed to, I didn't.

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Some of you are probably wondering,
"Is he being serious?",

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and you probably feel a bit nauseous.

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But that's how emotional food can make us.

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There's love and hate, and
there's everything in between.

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And this combination
of eating and emotions,

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it affects the way
we perceive one another,

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so you are more likely
to strike a relationship

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with a stranger in this crowd
who reacted the same way you did.

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Today, as Burma or Myanmar
is rejoining the global community,

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we have this exact problem.

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The world's opinion about us is divided,

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but, what I want to do is to show you
you my idea today of a food revolution

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because I think we can
shape these opinions

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using the love of our nation's cuisine.

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Now, in case you don't know who I am
or you haven't figured it out yet,

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I'm infatuated by eating.

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I have a bit of a problem,
I'm a little obsessed, okay?

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To me, food is constantly evolving.

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You can have the exact same dish
in two completely different environments,

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and your experience
is completely transformed.

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For example,

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have any of you ever had a coffee
in the morning before the toilet?

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Anyone?

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Well, I'm sure there's
some of you who have -

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It helps the bowels, okay?

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It's quite life-changing for some of us.

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My life changed when I was four,

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when I left Burma and I moved to the UK.

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And it was just the four of us.

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It was my parents, my brother and just me.

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There you are.

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At home was first where
I fell in love with our cuisine.

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But, to tell you the truth,

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until I moved back to Burma,
about five years ago,

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this cuisine was my only real connection
to this country growing up.

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At home, my mom's
signature dish was her Mohinga.

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And this Mohinga was very special

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because she would make this
for breakfast, for dinner, for birthdays.

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I know you're getting hungry,
okay, just a minute -

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for all sorts of special occasions.

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But, for those of you who don't know,
who may be watching, what a Mohinga is,

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it's the dish we all grew up with.

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It's a hot, steaming fish-based broth,

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and in this country we have it
in the morning, in 35 degree heat -

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which I'm feeling right now -

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at home, or on the street.

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But if you can picture it for a second -

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this is where I grew up.

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So, in winter, in zero degree weather,

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can you picture having
that exact same dish

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while the snow is falling outside?

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It's a transformative experience, right?

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So, this dish started off life

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as a breakfast dish intended
to fill you up in the morning,

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but now, it has the power to keep
a whole family together and warm at night.

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And about two and a half years ago,
I wanted to channel that experience.

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I wanted to challenge the way

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our local cuisine was seen
and experienced,

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so I was one of those
crazy nut jobs that decided

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that opening a restaurant
would be a good idea.

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Now, if people care about you,

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no one will ever tell you
that it is a [bad] idea.

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But, we did it anyway,
and we've been very lucky.

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Over the last two and a half years,
our representation of local cuisine

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has been featured in over
50 international publications.

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But, the amazing thing about that

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is that most of these publications
are writing about Burmese cuisine

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for the very first time.

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For me, if I was to describe
our country through a dish,

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it would be that Mohinga.

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Because both the country
and the dish are humble in nature.

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I think both are slightly misunderstood
by those who don't know it,

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but I think, both have
the potential to go global.

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But, you see, the problem
we have in this country right now,

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is that we put so much emphasis
on developing it,

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purely with the things we can measure.

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So, we measure the currency,

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we measure the economy,

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we measure the weather.

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Sometimes, we measure the traffic,

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and we tell each other how horrible
the traffic has become.

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But let me ask you, what about
the things we can't measure?

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How do we measure the way our taste buds
will change over the next generation?

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We can't.

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How could we measure the impact
that our cuisine could have

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on somebody eating it
for the very first time?

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We can't.

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But these things are just as important
in the evolution of our country.

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So if I put this photo in front of you,

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which is a cheeseburger, right?

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What is the first country
that would come to mind?

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Presumably, for the majority of you
would be America, yes?

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But, what if I told you that the burger
began with the Mongol Empire,

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would you believe me?

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The legend goes that, as Genghis Khan
and his army were conquering the world,

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they had a problem.

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They would often live on vast areas
of land with no vegetation.

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So what they did was they would get meat -

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back then it was horse meat -

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and they would put it under their saddle,

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so they could eat as they ride.

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And if you look at
a map of this great empire,

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you will find that a lot of this area
is in a part of the world

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we now call Eastern Europe.

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And it's in Eastern Europe
that we would see

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the first version of this burger

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which is the tartare,
which is diced up raw meat.

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Many, many, many years later,

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that this dish, the tartare,
would make its way to Germany,

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to a city called Hamburg.

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That's where it would become
the hamburger,

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not because it has ham in it, okay?

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So, I've just broken an urban myth there.

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What this story tells us is that

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in the evolution
of a country or a cuisine,

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we shouldn't be talking about
weeks, or months, or years.

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We should be talking about decades,
or centuries, or potentially even longer.

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If you allow me to ask you
some questions -

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I just want you to think
about it for a second -

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if we hadn't been isolated
for more than the last 50 years,

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do you think that there would be

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more Burmese restaurants
around the world?

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Perhaps?

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Do you think that Burmese cuisine
would have evolved in any way?

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Perhaps?

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But, do you think there would be
more tourists coming into Burma?

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I definitely think so.

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But these are all
great questions in hindsight.

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Maybe they're not so relevant anymore,

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but a relevant question would be something
a friend asked me a couple of weeks ago

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which is, "Htet, would you
travel for food?"

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So, let me ask you,
would you travel for food?

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(Audience) Yeah.

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Htet Myet Oo: Yeah?
Because I only travel for food, okay.

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It's the only reason
I get free lunch today,

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so that's why I did this.

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(Laughter)

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And I think more and more people
every year, are traveling to places

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like the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower,

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not just to see
these historical landmarks,

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but they're traveling to sample
the cuisines of that country.

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Food is a big reason why we go back
to these countries time and time again.

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So, this is me in a food coma in Paris.

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(Laughter)

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You can see that.

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I didn't quite make it to the Eiffel Tower
but you can see why.

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Last year, the UN released a survey
that showed that 88.2% of people

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consider gastronomy.

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So, let's picture that
no one here was Burmese,

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or you've never been
to visit Burma before.

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If we were researching

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whether we wanted to come to
this beautiful country on holiday,

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and we were part of that 88.2% ,

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what do you think that we would see
written about our cuisine?

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Because when I moved here
five years ago, this is what I saw:

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"It's too oily."

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"Htet, Burmese food is so oily, alright."

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"It has too much MSG in it."

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I like MSG, but that's for another talk.

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But the truth of the matter is that

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this is just the opinions of a few
and these are certainly not facts.

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But if we did look at some facts,
what we would find is that

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there are over a 135 ethnic
minorities in the country.

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That's a fact.

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So, that's a lot of different ways
of consuming food.

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Rangoon, the city that
we're standing in right now,

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in the late 1920s had taken over New York

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as the migration capital of the world.

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That's also a fact.

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And that's a lot of influence
coming in from other countries.

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So, let me ask you again,

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in that 88.2%,

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what do you think we should be
seeing written about our cuisine?

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If you look at this,

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which is our coconut noodles,

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you should see our generosity,

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our richness as a country.

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If you look at this, our prata 
traditionally from India,

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so you should see our cultural diversity

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and our history.

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If you look at this

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- which is our Mohinga -

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it has 28 ingredients.

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So, you should see the complexity
of the people that we are.

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The great news is

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that promoting our country
through our cuisine is in our reality,

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with the right mix
of passion and planning.

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It's called Culinary Diplomacy,

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and if you google it -

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which I've shown you how to do
in case any of you are not aware -

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what you will find is
a Wikipedia article which states

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that Culinary Diplomacy
is based on the premise that,

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"the easiest way to win hearts
and minds is through the stomach."

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As you can tell.

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And what you will have now

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is a number of government-led 
initiatives around the world

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practicing culinary diplomacy programs,

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like in Thailand,
like in Korea, like in the US.

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If we took Thailand as an example, 
because they're the closest country to us,

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they've released or they started

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a culinary diplomacy program
in 2002 called "Global Tha.""

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What the government aimed to do
was to subsidize and certify

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as many Thai restaurants around the world
as the government could afford.

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They had three main targets:

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Number one was they wanted to create

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as many jobs for Thai hospitality 
migrants around the world.

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Secondly, they wanted to increase
exports out of Thailand,

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and they thought, more
Thai restaurants more exports.

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And the third thing,
which is very difficult to measure,

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is that they wanted to increase

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the global understanding
and appreciation of Thai cuisine.

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If you ask, whether you think
they've been successful or not,

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you just have to look at this.

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In 2002 there were 5,500 Thai restaurants


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outside of Thailand around the world;

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by 2012, there were 15,000.

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There were 10 million visitors
going into Thailand in 2002,

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and there were 32 million in 2016.

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Of course, this culinary diplomacy program

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is not the only reason why
these numbers have gone up,

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but it shows that a national initiative
to do something like this

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has an effect in the long term.

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The truth is, that if the world had more
of an affinity towards our country,

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we would be less likely
to be discriminated against, right?

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Because we have an identity,
people know who we are.

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But more important than that,
is in this generation and the next,

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there would be more
opportunity for all of us.

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But, what we need to do
as Burmese people, is realize that

00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:41.350
our pride is our strength,
but it can also be our weakness.

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It's not enough just to believe in
what you do and believe in yourself.

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In the 21st century you need to
convince others of it too.

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My dream is to see Burmese food
in every major city in the world.

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Mohinga in Paris,
Tea Leaf Salad in New York.

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Can you picture that?

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Yeah?

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If our country was a train,

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we have just left the station;

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we've only just left it.

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Culture, health, education, technology -

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all of these things
are all aboard this train.

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We, as a country, need to put
our cuisine on there as well.

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It's really important.

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The greatest thing about food

00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:40.250
is that there is no such thing
as a culinary dictator,

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because we don't want one of those, right?

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There is no such thing as a culinary coup.

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So it doesn't matter
the economy, the politics,

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no one will be able to take away
a global Burmese cuisine.

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Please, enjoy your lunch everyone.

00:15:57.050 --> 00:15:58.050
Thank you.

00:15:58.050 --> 00:16:00.670
(Applause)