Traditional food in Sri Lanka is colourful, tasty and treated with respect. It’s offered to the gods before a meal, to strangers regardless of caste or creed and reflects the bountiful gifts of a fertile island and generous sea.
From finger food and relishes to curry rice or desserts, Sri Lankan cooks blend and release flavours in surprising ways, often following family recipes handed down through generations. Sri Lanka’s Asian cuisine is hot and spicy, with lashings of rice and coconut milk, and plenty of tropical fruit to refresh the palate at the end of a meal.
Asian Cuisine, Finger Food and Relishes in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka claims some of the best finger food in Asian cuisine, a mouth watering array of patties and pastries, meat and vegetable rolls, fish cutlets with curry spices, crispy squid and onions and much more. Tasty snacks include spicy mutton rolls and doughnut shaped vada, made from potato, lentil or gram flour.
Coconut sambol is a popular side dish, a fiery relish of ground coconut, chillies, dried fish and lime juice, eaten with rice to stimulate appetite. Sambols can be made with various ingredients, bitter gourd, eggplant, bean sprouts, tomatoes, bananas or shrimps. Equally tasty and healthy is mallung, a blend of spices and chopped up greens, also used in ayurveda for their therapeutic properties.
Spicy Cooking, Curry Rice and Traditional Sri Lankan Food
Steamed or boiled, rice is Sri Lanka's staple diet and the perfect antidote to spicy cooking. Curry is eaten in small portions, meat, fish or vegetable, with extra spices, chillies and relishes added to taste. Sri Lanka claims over 15 varieties of rice, an amazing range of vegetables and delicious seafood, from tiger prawns, lobster and crab to mullet and amberjack.
Hoppers are almost a signature dish, once humble pancakes, now sought after by gourmets worldwide and a firm favourite in traditional Sri Lankan food. There are plain hoppers, egg hoppers, coconut milk hoppers, honey hoppers with palm treacle and string hoppers made from rice noodles and served with a little fish or chicken curry.
Sri Lankan Desserts and Tropical Fruit
Light or filling, Sri Lankan desserts are tempting. Among well loved puddings are wattalappam with coconut milk, jaggery, or unrefined sugar, cashew nuts, eggs and spices, and kiribath, a rice pudding served with a chilli relish on auspicious days, such as New Year or the first of the month. Buffalo curd with palm treacle is the ideal follow up to spicy food.
Cakes and sweets abound but it’s hard to beat the juicy tropical fruit for which Sri Lanka is renowned. The strong smell of durian is not for everyone but there are cashew and wood apples, mangosteen, passion fruit, mango, pineapple, water melon, rambutan, bananas and a seemingly endless supply of coconuts.
Solange Hando - I am a travel writer, editor and photographer, contributing to a range of publications in the UK and worldwide.
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