Cooking Rohingya food to reclaim identity

“It’s quite traditional to always have fresh green chilli on the table. You can bite into it if you feel you need more chilli,” says Noor Azizah.  

An advocate and refugee delegate for the United Nations, Azizah is usually speaking in front of global forums; but today, she is in her kitchen in Sydney’s suburbs.  

She’s teaching writer and food lover Benjamin Law how to cook a dish close to her heart: Rohingya chicken green curry. And the spice level? Hot!

“I’m ready,” says Ben. “I’m the son of a mother who carries dried chilli in her purse!” 

“Every Rohingya household has this spice mix: garam masala, turmeric, coriander, cumin and chilli powders,” says Azizah. “My sister made this garam masala I’m using today. Many Rohingya families grind our own spices; we don’t purchase them from the market. Everything has to be fresh!”

She gestures to a vibrant spread of herbs, ginger, garlic, tomatoes and cucumbers on the bench. “A lot of these ingredients are grown in Arakan, which is where Rohingya are from.” Arakan is the historical name used by Rohingya people for Rakhine state, Myanmar. “Traditionally we are farmers, so we take pride in our food.” 

This chicken green curry—Kurra ghuso sahlon baht loi in Rohinyga—is one of the first dishes Azizah’s mum made when they resettled in Australia.  

The family was granted asylum in Australia after a long journey fleeing Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in the 1990s, due to one of many waves of violence perpetrated against the Rohingya ethnic group by the Myanmar military junta. They initially arrived in Malaysia, where they spent eight-and-a-half difficult years in limbo as refugees.

“As a child I saw my mum cook these incredible dishes, even when we were in Malaysia, where we had absolutely nothing. It was with very basic ingredients like a couple of tomatoes and a couple of onions, and she would turn it into a Rohingya tomato soup.  

“After resettlement, we had a kitchen, we were able to go to the shops, and I watched her cook many more Rohingya dishes: beef curry, chicken curry.”  

Azizah’s family were part of the first small Rohingya community that resettled in Australia. Azizah remembers those in Sydney gathering to make a large curry to celebrate Eid.  

Now, there are about 3,000 to 4,000 Rohingya people in Australia: “If you go to Lakemba, Bankstown, Punchbowl, you can hear our language being spoken.”

Preserving Rohingya culture through food and tradition

Food continues to play a large role in the community today, as a way to come together but also to practise a culture that is at risk of being eradicated by decades of persecution and violence.

“When we cook, it's very communal. All the women are in the kitchen together, my sisters, my mum… we tell stories: of Rohingya culture, of what home was like in Arakan, and what we hope for.

“My mum didn’t have the opportunity to go to school in Arakan; she was completely excluded from the system. Cooking is a way for her to showcase her skills and showcase her culture.”

It’s something she has passed down to Azizah. “When I’m cooking Rohingya food, I’m sharing a small part of who I am as a proud Rohingya.” 

The Rohingya: denied freedom

The Rohingya are an ethnic group who have lived for centuries in Myanmar. Only one per cent of the estimated 2.8 million Rohingya people in the world today live in freedom, with access to legal identity documents, rights to work and education, and the ability to self-identify as Rohingya. The remaining 99 per cent are contained in camps or detention centres, or marginalised through harmful policies.

August 2024 marks a difficult moment for the Rohingya community, who are being squeezed on all sides. It is seven years since more than 700,000 Rohingya were forced into Bangladesh in 2017, fleeing a violent Myanmar military campaign. Over one million Rohingya refugees in the Cox's Bazar camps face an increasingly precarious existence.

Violence against Rohingya remaining in Myanmar has re-escalated in recent months. In early August, MSF teams working in Cox's Bazar received an influx of Rohingya patients with mortar shell injuries and gunshot wounds, who told medical staff that they had fled violent attacks in Rakhine state.   

Make the recipe:
Chicken green curry (Kurra ghuso sahlon baht loi)  

Ingredients:

• Halal chicken (cut into pieces)
• Onion
• Garlic paste
• Ginger paste
• Green chillis
• Garam masala
• Cumin powder
• Coriander powder
• Turmeric powder
• Coriander leaves
• Potatoes
• Rice for serving 

Instructions:

1. Sauté onions, garlic paste, and ginger paste until onions are translucent.
2. Add chicken, green chillis, and spices (garam masala, cumin, coriander, turmeric) and cook until chicken is browned.
3. Add potatoes and enough water to cover. Simmer until chicken is cooked and potatoes are tender.
4. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rice. 

Keen to try some more Rohingya recipes?  

Marking seven years of displacement, in partnership

MSF joined Plate It Forward and the Creative Advocacy Partnership to mark seven years since the largest exodus of Rohingya people from Myanmar in August 2017. We were honoured to work with Noor Azizah, founder of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network (a refugee, women and Rohingya-led organisation); and Noor Uddin, on the event Rohingya Social: A Long Table.
The Creative Advocacy Partnership is a collaboration between a number of individuals and organisations in Australia, Bangladesh and Malaysia, including the Rohingya women-led Australian Rohingya Women's Development Organisation as well as Elom Initiatives.