Sri Lankans are masters in the art of simple home cooking that fills your stomach as well as your soul. The country’s rich gastronomy is based on traditional flavors that have been carried on for generations, faithfully. If you are a tourist that’s currently in Sri Lanka, we suggest you eat like a local to experience the wonderful mouth-watering deliciousness of Sri Lankan cuisine. It’s spice meets heart!
Kicking it off with Breakfast:
It’s an ordinary Saturday in November, which means that most local households would stick to their usual meals, but add just a splash of celebratory Saturday magic. Since it’s the weekend, there is a good chance of milk rice (kiribath) being served for breakfast, and that is a feast if there ever was one. It is a traditional Sri Lankan dish that is usually served at festive and special occasions, and is prepared by cooking rice in coconut milk (hence, the name). Kiribath can be enjoyed with a hot lunu miris (spicy onion sambal paste), fish curry, bananas, jaggery, kithul treacle or with sweet coconut filling. Breakfast is typically eaten around 9AM. Other popular breakfast options include Kola Kanda (green congee), string hoppers with coconut sambol, or grains. Sri Lankans love a healthy breakfast, guys!
Can’t Fault that Rice and Curry:
Rice and Curry in Sri Lanka is unmatched! It is flavor on flavor, so no wonder the locals have it everyday! Seriously, even at the fanciest of events, lunch is always rice and curry. A typical plate of this delicious goodness would include steaming rice, a dhal curry, a couple of vegetable dishes, a protein option (usually fish or chicken), coconut sambol, and papadum for that crispiness that we all crave. Since it’s a Saturday, you might even have a side of Batumoju, Kiri Kos or a Cashew Curry! Rice and Curry is as nutritious as it is flavorsome, so you can indulge to your heart’s content. Lunch in Sri Lanka is fit for a king!
What’s for Dessert?
Buffalo Curd with Kithul Treacle is a staple in the Sri Lankan household. You are bound to be served a cup of this quintessential favorite wherever you go, after lunch, so save some space! It is the local version of Greek yoghurt. The sour tangy flavor of the curd is wonderfully complemented by the sweetness of the kithul treacle. It can also be enjoyed with a teaspoon of sugar. The other all-time classic dessert option at lunch time is fruit salad with vanilla ice cream. These are both healthy(ish), so don’t be shy to go for seconds.
Tea Time:
Tea time in Sri Lanka, especially on the weekend, puts Madhatter’s Tea Party to shame. Families get together around 4PM to chat and have quality family time, while they munch on various goodies. The coffee table would be beautifully adorned with trays full of butter cake, biscuits, bananas, buns, fried food and local sweets like milk toffee, wali thalapa and halapa. And what tea party would be complete without tea? No one takes as much delight in Ceylon tea, as a local does. In the evening, the tea would typically be made with a refreshing hit of ginger and sugar. Teatime in Sri Lanka is the epitome of guilty pleasures!
What about Dinner?:
Dinner on a Saturday night in Sri Lanka could mean a lot of things, but the local favorite is hoppers or Aappa. This ubiquitous delicacy is a bowl shaped pancake, made with fermented rice flour and coconut milk. They have the perfect texture as they are wonderfully crispy around the edges, while being fluffy and soft in the middle. Egg hoppers, especially, are so good that you won’t be able to stop from going for more. Hoppers are traditionally served with a spicy chilli and onion paste (like lunu sambol). They can also be enjoyed with a banana, butter and sugar, or on their own. We suggest you try Pani Aappa too, which is just a hopper but made to be sweet with the use of jaggery and kithul treacle. Other popular dinner items would be pittu, string hoppers (yes, for dinner too), and kottu.
Finishing off with Dessert:
Just looking at the photo gets us salivating! Watalappam is not an ordinary everyday dessert. It looks, smells and tastes divine. It’s a coconut custard pudding made of coconut milk or condensed milk, jaggery, cashew nuts, eggs, various spices, including cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, and sometimes thick pandan juice or grated vanilla pods. It’s on the sweet side, but it’s Saturday night, give us a break because we’re having Watalappam. It is the perfect dish to finish off a good day of Sri Lankan eating. Other desserts you could enjoy at dinner would be fresh fruits with ice cream, caramel pudding, and jelly.
After all this, you might have to go on a jog the next day, but it will all be worth it.
Photos sourced from Dennis Sylvester Hurd, rhthmicdiaspora, Hafiz Issadeen, Charlie Marchant
