Sri Lankan Cuisine, Image Credit: AVANI Kalutara Resort

Sri Lanka, an island nation where extraordinary is the style of living. From the wildlife to the landscapes, the people and the food, nothing is ordinary. Of the latter, you are in for a treat if you are a foodie lover! From luscious curries to crunchy sambols and honey-dripping sweets, Sri Lankan cuisine is a pleasure for your eyes as well as the senses.

 

One thing you will straightway notice when you visit the country is that the people here are mad about their rice and curry. God forbid the day that a Sri Lankan has to go without having rice and curry-Such atrocities are never heard of! Okay, we’re kidding, but these two things do play a big deal in Sri Lankan cuisine. You can have a sample of it anywhere from the street side eateries to high-end restaurants in Kalutara like the ones at AVANI Kalutara Resort. Rice is the staple food of the country which was, back in the day, called ‘The Granary of the East’. This is because apparently Sri Lanka was so successful in rice production that it was capable of feeding the entire East.

 

When it comes to curry, Sri Lankan can make a curry out of anything from mangoes to bitter gourds, which might have been an inkling of the snozzcumbers that The Big Friendly Giant ate-ugh! So, yeah anything can be made a curry. Some of the most favourite of curries are Chicken curry, Dhal Curry and Ambul Thiyal- sour fish curry.

 

Make sure to sample the street food when in Sri Lanka, they are quite a delicious mouthful of fiery flavours. One of these is koththu, which is a mix of strips of roti, meat or fish and vegetables. The most interesting thing about koththu is how it is made. Well to put it this way, a Koththu chef is a sort of a hybrid of a teppanyaki chef and a DJ. Yes, you need to see it, and if you see koththu shops saying that Dolphin koththu is available, there’s no need to call animal welfare it’s just a type of koththu that absolutely has no dolphins included in it.

 

When it comes to desserts, there are more than a few delicacies to satisfy your sweet tooth. There’s wattalapam delicious custard swathed in rich caramel; curd and treacle-best are found in a town called Tissamaharama and then fruit salad, a healthy mix of some of the island’s favourite fruits.

 

Intrigued by history, art and food, Lavinia Woolf is a writer who is passionate about the extraordinary and writes of the exhilarating and enchanting.

 

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