Sri Lanka Rice and Curry Spices….
Top 5 misconceptions about Sri Lankan Rice and Curry
1: It’s basically a type of Indian curry.
A myth propagated by Indian restaurants abroad with their Ceylon curries – generally meaning one made with coconut milk. Sri Lankan Rice and Curry is a completely distinct meal from any one would have on the Indian subcontinent: it’s a way of preparing serving and eating food – hell it’s a way of life!
2: Lazy hotel restaurants serve it cold.
Sri Lankan’s traditionally eat with their hands – ergo Rice and Curry is served luke-warm at the most.
3: The hotel/lodge/guesthouse/friend’s house that I ate it first serves the best curry in Sri Lanka.
They almost certainly don’t. We all get nostalgic over our first times’… However, my friend Piyus’ wife definitely has a good claim…
4. A foreigner eating with their hands is just a bit of a ‘try hard’.
Rice and Curry is designed to be eaten with one’s hands. It needs to be mixed together – to try the different textures tastes combinations – to use that extra sense and, most importantly, to negate the furious chillie heat of some of the curries.
5: Sri Lankan’s can cope with much spicy-hot food than foreigners
Now this one is slightly controversial. Sri Lankan’s tend to believe this one. However, it is my contention that the method of eating – rubbing large amounts of rice into small amounts of curry negates a good deal of the heat. Faced with an ultra hot Thai salad or soup, I have seen many a Sri Lankan wilt Similarly foreigners who think Sri Lankan food is the hottest they have ever tasted are probably just eating it wrong!
If you’d like to try your hand at making Sri Lankan curries, you can experience various cooking classes across the island.
