Competitors stir a vat of htamane at Shwedagon Pagoda last week. Pic: Aung Tun Win

MYANMAR orchestral music filled the air on the lower platform of Shwedagon Pagoda as 26 teams rushed around open fires cooking htamane, a traditional delicacy consisting of a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut slices, sesame seeds, peanuts and cooking oil.

One of the competitors, 75-year-old U Hla Maung, guided the stirring of the rice in an iron pot with big wooden paddles while he urged his younger team mates to work more quickly in their tasks – feeding the flames of the cooking fire, pouring oil into the pot, stirring rice and adding ingredients to the mixture
“I’ve been coming to Shwedagon every year since 1980 to make htamane,” said U Hla Maung, the head of the Thursday Team. “It’s really less of a competition and more of an important ritual that I can’t do without.”

The competition at Shwedagon, in which 52 teams took part in two 26-team shifts last Wednesday, was part of an annual ritual that occurs throughout the country around the full moon of the lunar month of Tabodwe to celebrate the completion of the monsoon rice harvest.

U Hla Maung said that for him the making of htamane is a meritorious deed because his team pours respect, gratitude and goodwill into the task, with the food then offered to the images of Buddha.

“When we prepare to make htamane we first collect funds for ingredients. When we’re ready we split the chores. The girls do what some might call ‘light’ work like winnowing the rice grain and shelling peanuts, but doing it quickly requires practice and training,” he said.

The boys, meanwhile, take charge of “dirty” tasks like building and maintaining the cooking fire, breaking open coconuts and stirring the glutinous rice in the pots.

“Although the tasks are divided there’s really no difference between the work done by girls and boys. It all requires hard work and must be done in the spirit of goodwill,” U Hla Maung said.

“Making good htamane requires strength and team spirit. The food does not yield its full flavour if it is made selfishly or only for oneself,” he said.

The process begins with the men making a fire in a shallow pit dug in the ground. An iron pot is then placed over the flames, held in place by a makeshift frame of three concrete blocks.

With the fire blazing underneath, oil is poured into the pot. As it sizzles, shredded ginger is added, followed by glutinous rice that has been soaked in water.

Hot water is added slowly in small portions as the mixture is stirred. When the rice is soft and pliant with oil oozing out, the pot is removed from the flames and placed on bricks on the ground.

At this point the stalwart male members of the team take over, two of them stepping up to stir and mash the rice in the pot using long wooden paddles. As the rice cools it gets stickier and harder to stir. Participants say it takes both strength and skill to make the coagulated mass yield to the stirring.

“When the first two men get tired, another two take over their duty,” U Hla Maung said.

These two are joined by a third person – a man or a woman – who takes hold of the lower ends of the paddles and skilfully guides them through the mass of glutinous rice.

“This is my favourite duty, guiding the two paddles while the young men stir with all their strength,” said U Hla Maung.

He said that whenever he takes over this duty, the young people in the crowd applaud and call him a ba, an affectionate name for an elderly man who is still strong.

“It makes me feel like I’m still young and strong,” he said.
During the stirring, women come forward and slowly add slices of coconut and peanuts in small portions and sesame seeds.

“Sesame seeds are added last. In some areas like upper Myanmar where sesame seeds are abundant, they use larger amounts in their htamane mixtures,” he said. “There is even an idiom in the Myanmar language about sprinkling sesame seeds that indicates doing commendable work after others have finished the dirty work.”

“When we finish making the htaname, we offer the first portion to Shwedagon Pagoda. Then we offer portions to nearby monasteries and visiting monks and pilgrims on the pagoda platform,” U Hla Maung said.

He said many people also make htamane on their own and donate packages of the delicacy on the full moon day of Tabodwe.

“I feel very happy when I’m on the pagoda platform and others offer me their htamane. Even though I make my own, I also enjoy and appreciate the work of others,” he said.