The Art of Hearing Heartbeats and Burmese Curry Fish

Jan-Phillipp Sendker's The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is a poetic, mythical novel about a women's search for her father after he disappears from their Manhattan life and her returns to his birthplace, Burma.  This novel was first published in German in 2002, which I didn't know when I ordered the book.  I don't usually like to read translations because I feel like I will be missing something, that I won't be reading the real thing.  I was blown away by the beautiful and lyrical storytelling of this book - whoever did the translation did an exceptional job.  Most of the book tells a fairy tale of a love story between Tin Win, a blind Burmese boy, and Mi Mi a Burmese girl with a deformed leg.  It seems impossible that Tin Win, who started out in a small rural Burmese town, ended up as a successful entertainment lawyer in New York.  But he did, and one day he left his family, including his grown daughter Julia, also a lawyer, and disappeared.  Julia heads to Burma to find him, and this is where she discovers the real story of her father's first 20 years.  Since the majority of the action takes place in Burma, I was excited to find some Burmese recipes on the internet.  In the book, the only real mention of Burmese food is various curries and rice.  There is not a lot out there in the States about Burmese food, likely because it's political situation has made it so difficult to travel there over the past few years.  One of my favorite cookbook authors (Naomi Duguid) is coming out with a Burmese cookbook this fall.  For now I googled around and came upon a recipe in a San Francisco newspaper for a Burmese fish curry. It is made with salmon which of course they don't have in Burma, but the sauce is hopefully at least a little authentic. 

When we first learn about Tin Win, he is described as a successful New York lawyer, committed if distant husband and loving father to Julia Win, a young Manhattan attorney.  Julia notes that neither she nor her mother know anything about her father's first 20 years of his life, before he emigrated from Burma to the United States.  Suddenly, in his AARP years, Tin Win disappears without a trace.  Julia, in an effort to figure out what happened to her father, finds an old love letter he wrote to a woman she has never heard of - Mi Mi.  Julia, despite the protestations of her mother, travels to Burma to try to find her father.  There she meets U ba, a mysterious and talkative older gentleman who finds her in a tea-house and proceeds to tell her the story of her father's childhood.  As soon as he starts telling the story the language of the book turns poetic and the story proceeds in a mythological manner,  Tin Win was born in a small town on an "unlucky day" to a family that deeply believed in the declarations of their local astrologer.  Tin Win, according to the astrologer, would only bring his mother pain and suffering.  After hearing this she kept her distance, and when her husband died tragically, she abandoned Tin Win.  An elderly aunt came and cared for him, and at 10 years old Tin Win suddenly lost his site.  Here is where the magic begins - Tin Win, without his sight soon develops an almost super natural sense of hearing.  He can hear the animals sing, he can navigate his way around the village by his ear and eventually he is stopped in his tracks by the sound of a young girls heartbeat.  This girl is Mi Mi, who is crippled and must crawl or be carried by her brothers to get around.  I guess it is a little bit melodramatic and cliche, but Tin Win and Mi Mi immediately become close and soon fall in love.  Maybe if this book was written by Nicholas Sparks I would have found the whole thing annoying, but because of the exotic location and the fairy tale style of writing, I really fell for this story and the poignancy of Tin Win's love story.  Sendker's writing really transports the reader to the slightly magical world of Tin Win and Mi Mi, and it the sections of the novel that tell their story that really shine.   As U Ba continues to tell Julia the story of her father, she comes closer to finding him and finding the truth about why he left.  The last third of the book builds a lot of momentum towards this effort, and for me the moving ending came to quickly. 

Burmese Fish Curry, adapted from the San Francisco Gate
I apologize that this is not a truly authentic Burmese dish, I will work on finding one that doesn't require ingredients that are difficult to find (like fermented tea leaves for the famous Burmese tea leaf salad!)  I found this online from a San Francisco newspaper and the author of the recipe freely admits that salmon is not common in Burma.  That said, the curry sauce pairs beautifully with the salmon and this would work wonderfully with most other fishes or shrimp.  If you do use something like tilapia or flounder, cook the fish for much less time, like 5 minutes.   I will definitely be using this curry sauce more in the future, it is easy, spicy and tangy and would be great with chicken as well.

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, finely chopped

1 lemongrass stalk (white part only), smashed

2 ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges

1 ounce fresh ginger, smashed

6 cups water

8 cilantro sprigs

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon tamarind powder, or

4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

3/4 tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

1 Serrano chile, seeded and sliced

2 tablespoons sugar

4 salmon steaks, each about 1-inch thick 

Directions:

1. In a large work or large deep skillet, heat the oil.  Add the onions, cook for 10 minutes over medium heat until lightly browned/golden.
2. Add the lemongrass, tomatoes, and ginger and cook over high heat for 1 minute.
3. Add water, 4 cilantro sprigs, garlic, tamarind powder or rice win vinegar (I used the vinegar), fish sauce,  turmeric, salt, paprika, pepper and chile and stir.
4. Cook mixture until reduce and flavors meld, 20 minutes or so.
5. Stir in sugar.
6. Place salmon steaks into curry mixture and let cook over medium heat until cooked through, about 8 minutes.
7. Serve the salmon over rice, strain the sauce through a colander and top the salmon with the sauce.
8. Garnish with remaining cilantro sprigs.