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Burmese meals do not include desserts, but
fresh fruits in season are served after a meal. Between meals, however,
sweets are eaten to satisfy a sweet tooth, or taken in the form of a
cooking drink such as moh let saung. Then there is durian preserve - just
as strong smelling as the fruit, and arousing as much passionate for and
against discussion as the fruit itself, mango preserve, wild plums cooked
in jaggery treacle and jaggery toffee.
Agar-agar is the base of many jelly
preparations. They are generally much firmer than jellies served in the
Western countries. The seaweed jelly are made by letting it drip through a
jelly cloth all night (hurrying it at this stage would cloud the jelly).
When finished it was cut into large diamond-shaped pieces as clear and
golden as topaz with its texture soft like gelatin jellies, firm and
crunchy.
There are also a number of cakes, fritters,
doughnuts and steamed sponges made from finely ground rice flour and
sweetened with jaggery. They may be served with jaggery treacle, freshly
grated coconut, toasted sesame seeds and quite often a pinch of salt. The
contrast is surprisingly pleasant. Unlike Indian sweetmeats, the Burmese
specialties are only slightly sweet.
Most of them are prepared and sold by
professional sweet makers, and each sweet maker specializes in only one
variety. They are not made at home, for they require special equipment and
hours of preparation. The very mention of moh sein boung (steamed sponge
cake) is enough to make an expatriate Burmese go misty eyed. This is a
beautiful light textured rice flour sponge steamed in a tall mould in two
layers of white and brown. The brown portion gets its color from jaggery
(palm sugar). Hawked through the streets at breakfast time, it is eaten
off banana leaves with a sprinkle of grated coconut and mixture of crushed
toasted sesame seeds and salt. Not very sweet or rich, but very
satisfying.
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