In the Burmese language, the term mont (Burmese: မုန့်; pronounced[mo̰ʊɴ]) translates to "snack", and refers to a wide variety of prepared foods, ranging from sweet desserts to savory food items that may be cooked by steaming, baking, frying, deep-frying, or boiling. Foods made from wheat or rice flour are generally called mont, but the term may also refer to certain varieties of noodle dishes, such as mohinga. Burmese mont are typically eaten with tea during breakfast or afternoon tea time.[1]
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Mont
A plate of mont kywe the, a rice flour cake sweetened with jaggery and garnished with grated coconut
Each variety of mont is designated by a descriptive word or phrase that precedes or follows the word mont, such as htoe mont (lit.'snack that is prodded') or mont lone yay baw (lit.'floating snack balls'). The term mont has been borrowed into several regional languages, including into Shan as မုၼ်း and into Jingpho as muk.
In Burmese, the term mont is not limited to Burmese cuisine: it applies equally to items as varied as Western-style breads (ပေါင်မုန့် or paung mont), Chinese moon cakes (လမုန့် or la mont), ice cream (ရေခဲမုန့် or yay ge mont) and tinned biscuits (မုန့်သေတ္တာ or mont thitta).
Lower-amylose rice varieties are commonly used as a key ingredient in Burmese mont.[2] Sweet Burmese mont are generally less sweet than counterparts in other parts of Southeast Asia, instead deriving their natural sweetness from constituent ingredients (e.g., grated coconut, coconut milk, glutinous rice, etc.).[3][1]
A hawker near Kyaiktiyo Pagoda selling a variety of traditional mont
There is a nearly endless variety of named dishes with the prefix or suffix mont. What follows is a list of the most typical traditional varieties of mont.
Noodles
Noodle dishes made with fresh rice vermicelli, which is called mont phat (မုန့်ဖတ်), are typically prefixed with the term mont, including:
Kway lapaysa or ahtat taya mont (အတပ်တစ်ရာမုန့်) - a multi-layered jelly pudding introduced by the Sino-Burmese[10]
Mont kya gwet (မုန့်ကြာခွက်; lit.'lotus cup snack')
Mont kyazi (မုန့်ကြာစေ့; lit.'lotus seed snack') or mont peinnèzi (မုန့်ပိန္နဲစေ့; lit.'jackfruit seed snack') – small balls of boiled glutinous rice in palm sugar syrup
Mont kyet u (မုန့်ကြက်အူ, lit.'chicken intestine snack') or mont gyo thwin (မုန့်ချိုသွင်း) – rice flour strings, similar to Indian jalebi
Mont kywe leit (မုန့်ကြွေလိပ်, lit.'rolled cowrie snack') – glutinous rice and rice flour snack garnished with sesame seeds, fried garlic, and coconut shavings[11]
Mont kywe the (မုန့်ကျွဲသည်း, lit.'buffalo liver snack') – rice flour pudding sweetened with jaggery[12]
Tun, Ye Tint; IRIE, Kenji; SEIN, THAN; SHIRATA, Kazuto; TOYOHARA, Hidekazu; KIKUCHI, Fumio; FUJIMAKI, Hiroshi (2006), "Diverse Utilization of Myanmar Rice with Varied Amylose Contents", Japanese Journal of Tropical Agriculture, 50, Japanese Society for Tropical Agriculture, doi:10.11248/jsta1957.50.42
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