Sri Lankan Cooking. Wendy Hutton

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      Food in Sri Lanka

       Cinnamon, cloves and other spices are the island’s culinary gems

      Sri Lanka, the fabled island of sapphires, rubies and other precious stones, is home to one of the least known Asian cuisines. Rarely found in restaurants outside the island itself, Sri Lankan fare is often mistaken for yet another Indian regional cuisine. To the culinary explorer, however, Sri Lankan food is as intriguing and unique as the many other customs of this island paradise.

      Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, is located off India’s southeast coast. The rugged terrain of the central highlands— characterised by high mountains and plateaus, steep river gorges and swathes of tea plantations—dominates much of the island. This falls away to sandy lowlands, rice paddies and long stretches of palm-fringed beaches.

      The ancestors of today’s Sinhalese peoples arrived some 2,500 years ago from Northern India. They named themselves after a mythic ancestor who was born of a sinha (lion) and a princess. After conquering the local Yakshas, a succession of kingdoms—Sinhalese in the centre and south, and Tamil in the Jaffna Peninsula—rose and fell over the centuries. The first Portuguese ships chanced upon Sri Lanka in the early sixteenth century and set about trading in cinnamon and other spices. There followed four hundred years of Western presence in the form of Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British before Sri Lanka regained her independence in 1948.

      Such diverse influences may be tasted in dishes of Arab biryani (yellow rice with meat and nuts), Malay nasi kuning (turmeric rice), Portuguese semolina love cakes, and Dutch breuders (dough cakes) and lampries (savoury rice and meat packets).

      Sri Lankan cuisine, which is based upon rice with vegetable, fish or meat curries, and a variety of side dishes and condiments, reflects the geographical and ethnic differences of the land. Seafood dishes, such as Spicy Fish Stew (seer fish stew), Tamarind Claypot Fish (ambulthiyal), Coconut Curry Crabs and Rich Seafood Soup (Jaffna kool), are common to coastal and, increasingly, inland areas. The eating of large animals, such as cows and deer, is less popular due to the predominantly Buddhist and Hindu population; chicken and freshwater fish are usually preferred instead.

      Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coriander seeds, mace, pepper and cardamon pods.

      Turmeric, fennel, fenugreek, cumin, mustard seeds and dried red chillies.

      Sri Lanka is also blessed with an abundant harvest of fruits and vegetables. Jackfruit, breadfruit, okra, gourds, plantains and drumsticks are but some of the vegetables, tubers, and leaves that feature in one or other Sri Lankan dish.

      It is a cuisine expressed in spices—cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coriander, mace, pepper, cardamom, red chillies, mustard seeds, cumin, fenugreek and turmeric are all used to flavour curries, while some add flavour to desserts and cakes. The spices of Sri Lanka, which helped to shape the history of the island, are truly its culinary gems.

      A Gustatory Paradise

       Sri Lanka’s dry and wet seasons are reversed from one side of the island to the other by two monsoons. From May to August, the southwest monsoon, Yala, brings heavy rain to the southern, western and central highland regions, leaving the other side dry. From October to January, the gentler northeast monsoon, Maha, brings rain to the north of the island. The coastal regions are hot and humid year round, while the hill country feels like perpetual spring.

      When Sri Lanka’s first settlers arrived from India in about 500 BC, the coastal lowlands they found were no paradise. Undaunted, they set to work making them one. They had brought with them the techniques of turning a stream into a small pond, and of digging sluices with gates to let water into small fields on demand. What happened over the next ten centuries is one of the greatest irrigation feats in world history: Sri Lanka’s system of reservoir “tanks” feeding a latticework of watercourses produced a rice surplus so large that it financed the island’s architectural and sculptural splendours.

      The simple brown rice of those early times became the twenty-odd varieties grown today. The two monsoons translate to two harvests a year over much of the island. Low-country rice is mostly plain white rice that cooks easily and has no strong taste to distract from the curries. Somewhat upscale is a red rice that bursts as it cooks, yielding a fluffy white interior with reddish flecks on the surface—this is the festive suduru samba served when entertaining guests. The highest grade of rice is long-grained basmati, often used when aromatic dishes are desired. In between, many lesser varieties are grown, usually in small quantities for local use.

      However, paddy agriculture is far from the only kind of farming. Slash-and-burn, or chena farming, is the bane of the back country, as it produces only two or three harvests of millet and root vegetables before depleting the soils and forcing the farmer to move on. But for many poor people, it is the only choice.

      In a category all of its own is the island’s enormous production of tea. The nuances of Sri Lankan tea are as complex and sophisticated as the nuances of fine wine. Small family plantations can be found even a few kilometres inland from the coast, but the higher the plantation the better the tea. The premium Dambula and other highland teas grow on tidily pruned plantations that undulate over the landscape as gracefully as slow-flowing water. The teas are processed in multi-storey factories painted white or silver that stand out amid the landscape like ghosts on a green sea.