Cho Cho’s Bean Thread Soup

Cho Cho lives in Taung Be, a small village near Old Bagan by the Irrawaddy River. Foreigners and tourists from other parts of Burma come by the busload to marvel at the hundreds of old temples in the Bagan area. But not far away from the much photographed ancient sites in Taung Be and other off-the-beaten-track hamlets, village life still goes on.

I met Cho Cho through her nephew in Rangoon. He had suggested that I could learn some traditional Burmese village dishes from her. That’s