fishermen wedge wooden poles into rock crevices to use as a perch while fishing.
One of the most popular sambol, Fresh Coconut Sambol (pol sambol), is made with freshly grated coconut; a simple meal of rice, lentils, Fresh Coconut 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, chilli 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 chilli 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 labourers 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 chillies 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 savouries made with black gram flour; and many types of vegetable pachadi, where cooked vegetables are tossed with curd or yoghurt and freshly grated coconut. Dosai, 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.
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 and water) all reflect Arab or Indian Muslim influence on Sri Lanka’s cuisine. Arabs are also credited with planting the first coffee trees— native to the Arabian peninsula—in Sri Lanka.
In general, Muslim food is slightly sweeter than Sinhalese and Tamil food, but it certainly isn’t lacking in spice. In fact, Arab traders are said to have been responsible for bringing spices such as cloves and nutmeg from the Moluccan islands to Sri Lanka long before the Dutch colonised what they called the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Muslim dishes in Sri Lanka never contain pork, which is forbidden by Islam, and pork is only occasionally eaten by the Christian Tamils and Sinhalese.
In more recent times, Malays, who were brought by the Dutch, have intermarried with the Muslim community and brought with them several dishes which have since become part of the Sri Lankan kitchen. Sathe is the Sri Lankan equivalent of satay or cubes of meat threaded on skewers and served with a peanut and chilli sauce. Other Malay dishes include gula melaka (sago pudding with jaggery), nasi kuning (turmeric rice), barbuth (honeycomb tripe curry), seenakku and parsong (two types of rice flour cakes).
The multi-ethnic mix of people living on this small island has resulted in a varied and fascinating cuisine that is delicious regardless of the geographic, ethnic or religious origin.
Spice and Other Things Nice
Spices, so important to the Sri Lankan kitchen, actually helped shape the history of the island. The Portuguese arrived at the beginning of the sixteenth century and it was Sri Lanka’s famous cinnamon—the delicately fragrant bark of the Cinnamomum zeylanicum tree native to the island —which became the prime source of revenue for the Europeans.
Cinnamon sticks are in fact dried curls of bark which are removed in thin slivers from the Cinnamomum zeylanicum tree. Cassia, which is often sold as cinnamon, comes from a related species and is darker brown in colour with a stronger flavour.
Sri Lanka’s cinnamon trees, which grew wild on the southern and western coasts of the island, were said to produce the finest cinnamon in the world—and sold for three times the price of cinnamon from other regions. It was said that “it healeth, it openeth and strengtheneth the mawe and digesteth the meat;
it is also used against all kinde of pyson that may hurt the hart.”
Cinnamon was still the most important source of revenue by the time the Dutch seized control of the island. They introduced penalties to protect it, making it a capital offence to damage a plant, and to sell or to export the quills or their oil. The Dutch did eventually succeed in cultivating cinnamon, but still relied largely on the wild supply. By the nineteenth century, however, the supremacy of cinnamon was challenged by the cheaper cassia bark grown elsewhere in Asia. The flavour is far less refined, and cassia bark lacks the faint sweetness of true cinnamon, but as the price was so competitive, Sri Lankan cinnamon eventually lost its dominance.
Cloves and nutmeg, indigenous to the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia, were planted in Sri Lanka by the Dutch who controlled most of the Dutch East Indies. Cardamom, indigenous to both Sri Lanka and southern India, was another valuable spice which flourished in the wetter regions of the country.
All of Sri Lanka’s spices are used to flavour savoury dishes such as curries; some also add their fragrance and flavour to desserts and cakes. Spices such as cinnamon therefore command a very important position in Sri Lankan culture, not only as culinary flavourings but also by virtue of their having played such a major role in the country’s history.
— Wendy Hutton
Colonial Tastes
Portuguese, Dutch and British influences and the creation of a Burgher culture
British colonials celebrate the end of World War II with a victory dinner in Colombo.
The wave of Western expansionism which began at the end of the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese first rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the west coast of India, was to have a significant impact on Sri Lanka. Over the next four centuries, colonialism affected not only the agriculture, social structure and religions of the country, but also the cuisine.
In fact, it was cuisine that attracted the Portuguese in the first place, or to be more precise, spices. With refrigeration and modern methods of food preservation, it is difficult today to imagine how vital and valuable spices were several centuries ago. They were used to help preserve food and also to mask the flavours of food that might not necessarily be in prime condition. Many spices have medicinal properties and some were
