Food of Sri Lanka - Wendy Hutton Food Of The World Cookbooks

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      Stilt fishermen wedge wooden poles into rock crevices to use as a perch while fishing.

      One Land, Many Peoples

      Sri Lanka’s multiethnic population ensures culinary variety

      Wendy Hutton

      Sri Lanka boasts a vast array of tropical fruits, vegetables, and spices, as well as an abundance of fish and other seafood in its lakes, rivers, and seas, and wild game in its forests. The way Sri Lankans put this bounty together in the kitchen depends to some extent on where they live, and even more upon their ethnic and religious background.

      The multiethnic mix of people living on this small island comprises Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors (Muslims), Burghers and Eurasians, Malays, and Veddhas.

      The majority of the population are Sinhalese, believed to be descended from Indo-Aryans who arrived from northern India more than 2,000 years ago and intermarried with scattered groups of tribal Veddhas. Over the centuries, the cooking of the Sinhalese has evolved into two slightly different styles: coastal or “low country" Sinhalese, and Kandy or “upcountry" Sinhalese.

      Regardless of where they live, the staple food for Sinhalese (and indeed, for all Sri Lankans) is rice. This is usually accompanied by a range of spiced vegetables, fish, poultry, meat, or game dishes. Most Sinhalese are Buddhist, and although the taking of life is against Buddhist teachings, most Sinhalese don’t mind eating food which has been killed by others. Strict Buddhists, however, are vegetarian (something they share with a number of Hindu Tamils).

      In coastal Sinhalese cuisine, fish, and other seafood feature far more widely than poultry or meat, and coconut milk is the preferred base for curries. Towns such as Bentota, Chilaw, and Batticaloa are noted for excellent seafood but most famous of all is Negombo. The crab and shrimp dishes from this west coast town are well-known throughout Sri Lanka. Negombo is also the site of one of the island’s busiest and most colorful fish markets.

      Another Sinhalese specialty from the coast is ambulthiyal, or sour claypot fish. At its best in the Southern town of Ambalangoda, ambulthiyal is a dish of balaya (bonito) which uses goraka (gamboge) as both a flavoring and a preservative—even in Sri Lanka’s heat and humidity, this dish can keep for up to a week.

      An ingredient known as Maldive fish is widely used as a seasoning throughout Sri Lanka, but especially in coastal regions. It is made from a type of bonito (also known as skipjack) which is boiled, smoked, and sun-dried until it is rock hard.

      Kandy, the heart of upcountry Sri Lanka, remained an independent Sinhalese kingdom until the British finally took over in 1815, thus it largely escaped the social and culinary influences of the Portuguese and Dutch. Thanks to the higher altitude and cooler climate, a wide range of vegetables and fruits flourish around Kandy and other upcountry regions, which are renowned for their range of delicious vegetable dishes.

      Many Kandian curries are made with unusual ingredients such as young jackfruit, jackfruit seeds, cashews, breadfruit, and green papaya, while various edible flowers such as turmeric, hibiscus, and sesbania may end up in an omelette or curry. Game, including deer and wild birds, was also an upcountry favorite, although dwindling forests and restrictions on hunting in protected areas have diminished the amount of game now being cooked in upcountry kitchens.

      A street vendor prepares kaum (left) and kokis (right), two traditional deep-fried snacks or sweetmeats as they are known in Sri Lanka.

      Sinhalese refer to their main meal as "rice and curry,” and normally serve several types of spiced or "curried” dishes of vegetables, fish, meat, or poultry. Curries are classified by their spicing and method of cooking rather than by their main ingredient. Thus, there are "red” curries which contain an often incendiary amount of chile, and usually a limited number of spices. There are also the distinctively Sinhalese "black” curries which develop a wonderfully rich aroma and flavor, thanks to the technique of roasting whole spices (primarily coriander, cumin, and fennel) to a rich brown color before grinding them. "Brown” curries are made from unroasted spices, while "white” curries, which contain plenty of coconut milk and very little chile, are generally quite mild.

      When choosing which curries to serve with the rice, Sinhalese cooks ensure that there is a variety of textures as well as flavors, with at least one fairly liquid, or soupy, curry to help moisten the rice, and usually a relatively dry curry with a thick gravy. One of the curries will most likely be a spiced lentil dish, and there is sure to be at least one pungent side dish or condiment known as a sambol (from the Malay sambal). These sambol, also know as "rice pullers,” are guaranteed to whet the appetite with their basic ingredient—anything from onion to bitter gourd, dried shrimp to salted lime—heightened by the flavors of chile, onion, salt, and Maldive fish.

      One of the most popular sambol, pol sambol, is made with freshly grated coconut; a simple meal of rice, lentils, pol sambol, and mallung is inexpensive, nutritious, and utterly satisfying. Mallung, which provides an unmistakable Sinhalese accent to every meal, is a vitamin- and mineral-packed mixture of leafy greens, freshly grated coconut, lime juice, chile, and powdered Maldive fish. Many of the greens used in a mallung are plucked from the kitchen garden, including young passionfruit leaves, gotu kala (Asian pennywort), young chile leaves, young leaves from the drumstick tree, and the leaves of the flowering cassia tree.

      The first Tamils are believed to have arrived at about the same time as the Indo-Ayrans, around 2,000 years ago. Successive waves of Tamils from southern India established themselves in Sri Lanka, mostly in the north, on the Jaffna peninsula. In the mid to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tamil laborers were brought in by the British to work on the tea estates in the cooler hilly areas of Sri Lanka. These later arrivals are generally referred to as Indian Tamils, to distinguish them from the long-established Jaffna Tamils.

      The majority of Sri Lanka's Tamils are Hindu, therefore they do not eat beef. Indeed, most Jaffna Tamils are strict vegetarians. Vegetables are grown in the gardens of countless families in Jaffna, irrigated by deep wells; anyone who has tasted fresh home-grown vegetables cooked Tamil style is indeed fortunate.

      The Tamil dishes found in Sri Lanka are similar to those of southeast India, where the vegetarian cuisine is among the world's finest. As with Sinhalese food, the basis of Tamil food is influenced by the teachings of the Ayurveda, ancient texts on the “wisdom of life and longevity." Seasonings such as curry leaves, brown mustard seed, and dried chiles are widely used, while freshly grated coconut, coconut milk, and yoghurt appear in many vegetable dishes.

      Popular Tamil dishes found in Sri Lanka include rasam, a spicy sour soup that is an aid to digestion; kool, a thick seafood soup originating from Jaffna fisherfolk; vadai, or deep-fried savories made with black gram flour; and many types of vegetable pachadi, where cooked vegetables are tossed with curd or yoghurt, and freshly grated coconut. Thosai, slightly sour pancakes made with black gram and rice flours, constitute another delicious Tamil contribution to the culinary scene. Some Tamil dishes, such as the steamed rice-flour rolls known as pittu, have been adopted by Sinhalese, and are now regarded as Sri Lankan.

      A market trader removes the skin from a jackfruit.

      A Galle Market trader displays his kiri peni, or curd and honey, a popular Sri Lankan snack The "honey" that one sees in the roadside stalls and on restaurant menus is really treacle from the kitul palm. Curd is traditionally made from buffalo milk.

      Sri Lanka's Muslims are believed to be descended from Arab traders who settled in and around Galle, Beruwala, and Puttalam from as early as the eighth century, and from Indian Muslims who migrated from southwest India.

      Ingredients such as rose water, saffron (not to be confused with turmeric, which is often called "saffron'' or "Indian saffron'' in Sri Lanka), cashews, and mint, as well as dishes like biryani rice, korma curries, and faluda (a dessert of cornflour

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