Food of Sri Lanka. Wendy Hutton

      A festive display of Sri Lankan rice, sambols, and fish curries.

      Part One: Food in Sri Lanka

      Cinnamon, cloves; and other spices are the island’s culinary gemstones

      Douglas Bullis

      Sri Lanka, the fabled island of sapphires, rubies, and other precious stones, is home to one of the least known Asian cuisines. Rarely found in restaurants outside the island itself, Sri Lankan fare is often mistaken for yet another Indian regional cuisine. To the culinary explorer, however, Sri Lankan food is as intriguing and unique as the many other customs of this island paradise.

      Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, is located off India's southeast coast. The rugged terrain of the central highlands—characterized by high mountains and plateaus, steep river gorges, and swathes of tea plantations—dominates much of the island. This falls away to sandy lowlands, rice paddies, and long stretches of palm-fringed beaches.

      The ancestors of today's Sinhalese peoples arrived some 2,500 years ago from Northern India. They named themselves after a mythic ancestor who was born of a sinha (lion) and a princess. After conquering the local Yakshas, a succession of kingdoms—Sinhalese in the center and south, and Tamil in the Jaffna Peninsula—rose and fell over the centuries. The first Portuguese ships chanced upon Sri Lanka in the early sixteenth century and set about trading in cinnamon and other spices. There followed four hundred years of Western presence in the form of Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the British before Sri Lanka regained her independence in 1948.

      Such diverse influences may be tasted in dishes of Arab biryani (yellow rice with meat and nuts), Malay nasi kuning (turmeric rice), Portuguese love cakes, and Dutch breuders (dough cakes) and lampries (savory rice and meat packets).

      Sri Lankan cuisine, which is based upon rice with vegetable, fish, or meat curries, and a variety of side dishes and condiments, reflects the geographical and ethnic differences of the land. Seafood dishes, such as seer fish stew, ambulthiyal (sour claypot fish),