In our globalised world, food brings our international connections into our daily lives. Local recipes are refreshed and reinterpreted using ingredients and cooking methods from other parts of the world, while dishes from far away and transformed and adapted by local produce. At Ma Khin Café, we work with these processes actively and creatively, and we describe this as Decolonial Food.
De colonial a decolonial
Our great-grandmother, Ma Khin ,was born in Moulmein Burma, today, Myanmar. It was there that she met our great-grandfather, Sir William Carr, an English judge who worked in the colonial administration. Although we were born in London, we always felt the urge to learn more about our great-grandparents’ country.
Bridget travelled there for the first time in 1986 to meet our grandfather U Khin Zaw, already advanced in years but still with a sharp sense of humour. We visited together in 2006 and since then, we have returned
on numerous occasions, both together and separately.
Just weeks after Steve’s last visit, in January 2020, a global pandemic broke out and, in February 2021, a military coup brought a bloody end to the democratic experiment that had begun to open Myanmar to the outside world. The memory of the people who welcomed us so generously on each of our visits now inspires us to spread a decolonial message of encounter, dialogue, and sustainable development.
– Steve Anderson. Owner, Restaurante Ma Khin, Valencia
– Professor Bridget Anderson. Director Migration Mobilities Bristol University
Decolonial experiences
