SELECTED FOOD WRITING
BBC TRAVEL - Jackfruit: the ‘vegan sensation’ that saved Sri Lanka
My mother grew up in a house of eight people in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, 100km north-east of Colombo. During the island’s severe droughts in the 1970s, most of her family’s humble, home-cooked meals consisted of boiled jackfruit served in a clay pot with a handful of freshly grated coconut.
BON APPÉTIT MAGAZINE - Sri Lankan Kiribath is Creamy, Velvety, and Made With 3 Ingredients
My mother, who worked as a school teacher, didn’t have time to cook for us during the week. But when the weekend arrived, Amma woke up early to prepare kiribath, Sri Lankan milk rice, for me.
BBC TRAVEL - Sri Lanka’s musical 'choon paan' bread trucks
I was young when I first heard the music. It came from the earthen road outside where a man was selling bread from a tuk tuk. Unlike other colourful three-wheeled vehicles, the back of this one held a glass display cabinet piled high with neatly stacked baked goods. “It’s the choon paan man…”
NEW YORK TIMES - The Many Sides of Curry Leaves
At my parents’ home in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, as at many others across South Asia, curry leaf trees grow in the backyard, suffusing the air with a slight earthiness. That scent only intensifies when the fresh leaves sizzle in coconut oil, an integral step in so much of our home cooking.
If you’ve long been using curry leaves, you know they bring a dish together, making it richer, more robust. A sprig or two elevates, but doesn’t dominate, other flavors. Once fried, they release their sweet, mildly citrusy aroma into the fat, scenting and seasoning vegetables, fish, meat and even rice.
RECIPE for NYT COOKING - Parippu Themparaduwa (Dal With Curry Leaves)
This Sri Lankan dal of tender lentils, like other dals on Sri Lankan tables, are central to every meal and usually served with several other dishes, such as kukul mas maluwa (chicken curry). Because it is part of a larger meal, dal is often seasoned simply. This version is as well, but it is richer in taste from curry leaves, which infuse the lentils with their flavor. Dry or frozen curry leaves are fine substitutes if you can’t find fresh ones. You can add some cumin or coriander powder, too, if you’d like, or skip the Maldive fish flakes for a vegan dish. This dal is easy to cook and can be refrigerated in a covered container for up to three days. Serve with long-grain rice, bread or any of your favorite roti or other Indian flatbreads.
SAVEUR - In Sri Lanka, This Centuries-Old Spirit Is Shaking Up The Local Cocktail Scene
At an 18-acre coconut garden of Rockland Distilleries in Naththandiya, just north of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, Roy Jayalath begins his work early in the morning. Jayalath climbs tall, swaying coconut trees to collect the white, milky sap of their flowers.
BON APPÉTIT - This Super Green Latte Blend Is Just Like My Amma’s
Some mornings I long for kola kanda. When I was a child, my amma would make this drink, a traditional Sri Lankan herbal beverage with a porridge-like texture and a rich, herbaceous taste.
BON APPÉTIT - How My Parents’ Herbal Cure-All Soothes Me to Sleep
Food is medicine in my Sri Lankan home. My parents infused their love and care for me and my sister into the food they cooked. Thaththa, my father, plated spicy sambals to comfort us during drowsy, sluggish sick days.
CNN - Little island, big flavors: Sri Lankan food finally gets its due
When Kolamba first opened in 2019, many diners who walked into the charming eatery in central London’s Soho district weren’t familiar with Sri Lankan cuisine.
They thought it was just like Indian food, says the restaurant’s co-founder, Aushi Meewella, who grew up in Sri Lanka.
“We felt Sri Lankan food was underrepresented in central London, so we wanted to bring the dishes we grew up on and missed when we moved away,” she tells CNN.
While Sri Lanka is India’s little neighbor, with only 22 million people, its food and culture are quite different.
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST - Not the same as Thai food: Laotian cuisine is on the rise
The tuk-tuk drops us at the entrance to a narrow street, where a middle-aged woman dressed in a grey jumper is grilling honeycomb wrapped in banana leaf.
THE JUGGERNAUT - Sri Lanka: The Reality of Mealtime in the Midst of Economic Collapse
The island nation’s worst economic crisis since its 1948 independence has forced people to change how and what they eat.
NEW LINES MAGAZINE - In Sri Lanka, Economic Crisis Alters the Taste of Tea
As a child, Sujeewan Sundaralingam woke up to his mother’s tea — thé or théthani as it’s called in Sri Lanka — made with milk powder every morning. It was creamy and thick and had a taste that the 33-year-old said he “just cannot explain.” The two-pound Anchor milk powder tin — a product of Fonterra, New Zealand’s largest company and a $14 billion revenue brand — was his mother’s most precious kitchen ingredient.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - Foraged feasts: India’s ‘Mother Earth’ cafes promote resilient foodways
It’s 2 in the afternoon and Dial Muktieh is rustling up a feast for her customers. River fish cooks in a bamboo hollow as charred skies bring scattered rains outside. A mother digs into a plate of native rice with tham – a condiment prepared with crabs found in the rice paddies, fermented fish, and prickly ash from the back garden – while a farmer rests on a low bench and sips a cup of tea with ja shulia, sticky rice cooked in a bottle gourd and served wrapped in a green leaf.
Welcome to Mei-Ramew Cafe.
Al JAZEERA - Rice morning, noon, and night in Sri Lanka
My mother is a good cook.
My father is just slightly better. That’s how my younger sister would always describe my parents’ food. She’s right. My mother cooked delicious curries. But my father cooked the food we hold dear.
My father grew up in Nabiriththawewa, a small village in Kurunegala, about 120km (75 miles) from Colombo.
Unlike his two older brothers who were more interested in going out with their friends, my father accompanied my grandfather to every village wedding. From what I could gather, my grandfather was the chef at every function in the village. He had cooked to feed hundreds.
Photo: Orange Wayfarer
FOOD52 - Meet Hilsa, the Beloved Fish That Connects Bengalis
Despite, or perhaps, in spite of cultural and religious tensions, hilsa fish continues to be savored by Bengalis across the Indian subcontinent.
VITTLES LONDON - Thambili: the king of all coconuts
“Those who know, know,” Sudath Fernando tells me, cutting a tender, young thambili at his makeshift kiosk on Galle Road in Colombo. Sudath has been selling thambili – often called ‘king coconuts’ in English – in Colombo since 1991. Some customers come to him as soon as he starts his business at six in the morning.
THE JUGGERNAUT - The Revival of Sri Lanka's Kithul Palm Treacle
“A study conducted in 2016 states that about 11.5% of tappers in Sri Lanka mix sugar to their final product, and that the tappers in their study added sugar at least once to their sap…Since the abysmal prices don’t justify the labor, tappers mix sugar into the treacle, watering it down to produce more bottles and earn a little more.”
MUD\WTR- Turmeric: Sri Lanka’s Golden Spice
While my thaththa (father) had many post-retirement plans, he mostly devoted his time growing kaha—Sinhala for turmeric—in our back garden in Kurunegala, about 120 km north of Colombo.
PIX - The Insider’s Wine Guide to Colombo
To be Sri Lankan is to eat well and drink well.
Ask a Sri Lankan how often and well they drink and they would pause. Islanders often hang back and hesitate to agree, but Sri Lanka has a strong drinking culture. Although wine is not new to Colombo’s shelves, it’s sometimes been lapped up with love, and at other times, greeted with raised eyebrows — blame politics, temperance movements, and a three-decade-long civil war.
WHETSTONE - A Sticky Sri Lankan Dessert Steeped in History
When I was five years old, I would love to sit beside my loku amma, solving riddles while she worked in the kitchen making kalu dodol. Loku amma was married to my paternal uncle, my father’s older brother. As a young girl, I loved my chatty, always laughing, childlike loku amma for many reasons. But more than anything, I longed for her kalu dodol, a dark brown, gelatinous Sri Lankan sweetmeat made with rice flour, coconut milk and palm jaggery.
THE JUGGERNAUT - Sri Lanka’s Little-Known Memoni Cuisine
For years, Memoni food remained absent from mainstream Sri Lankan cuisine, but women from the community are changing that.
TENDERLY (MEDIUM) - My Home is the Taste of Eggplant
Growing up in Sri Lanka, my childhood was rich with home cooked eggplant dishes — despite my dad’s warnings
WHETSTONE - In Sri Lanka, Lamprais Keeps The Dutch Burgher Legacy Alive
I’m talking to Herft over the phone on a Sunday evening. She had just delivered a carton of lamprais, a Sunday afternoon staple at Lansi homes in Sri Lanka.
SMART MOUTH - Custard and Community for Eid
“During Ramadan, his mother brought my family a plate full of biryani every day. Sometimes, there was a jug of falooda, a combination of milk, rose syrup, and basil seeds topped with a generous scoop of ice cream. She always arrived before iftar, the evening meal that marks the end of the daily fast for Muslims. She shared her food with us before she ate.”
THE JUGGERNAUT - Rishi Naleendra, Michelin Star-Chef, Spotlights Sri Lankan Cuisine
“I had to start from scratch,” Naleendra shared.
“In Singapore, I wasn’t a local to market their food. I cooked Western food, but I wasn’t white so they told me I can’t be a Western chef. You don’t cook Sri Lankan food either, so how can we hire you?”
SPRUDGE - In Sri Lanka, Kopi Kade Brings Specialty Coffee To The Capital City
“Stratford Avenue marks the end of Colombo. It separates Sri Lanka’s capital city from it’s suburbs to the southeast—up and down, the short stretch of road is dotted with small shops and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and hums with faint chantings of a nearby Buddhist temple. Here is where Kopi Kade calls home.”