food — Blog — Sri Lanka by Ish

The perfect hopper

Recording recipes for Sri Lanka by Ish really started its life as a way of getting my mother’s everyday cooking out of her head and onto the page. It has been largely a selfish exercise on my part, driven by the unbearable thought that one day I may never taste her food again. I know, I know, the sensible thing would have been to learn how to cook like her over the years, but her culinary prowess stifled my aspirations and then laziness crept in. So simply distilling and publishing her tried and true methods was my easy way out. That was until of course life delivered me a Sri Lankan hopper-sized curveball.

A fiery Sri Lankan chicken curry

It wasn’t until I started helping my mother roast the spices for this article that I realised how much I had forgotten. It wasn’t forgetfulness in any specific way, you know, the type that happens to you over time – like forgetting someone you went to school with or the year you got your driver’s licence (does anyone actually remember that??). But of aromas, sounds and feelings. The sorts of things that transport you back in time and to another you in another place.

Pettah produce markets: a feast for your senses

All my memories of the central Colombo district of Pettah over the years are pretty much the same – loud, brash, haphazard, gritty and at times claustrophobic and somewhat unnerving. Pettah is an old trading district created during Dutch colonial times outside of Colombo Fort (and literally named after that fact – “Pettah” is a corruption of a Tamil word “pettai” which means “a town outside the fort”). It also goes by the official district code of Colombo 11 and “pita kotuwa” if you’re talking in Sinhalese. It was the sort of place I remember …

High tea at the Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo: a review

I had never given much thought to eating at 5-star hotels growing up in Australia. They (still) don’t really figure much on the Australian culinary landscape. But I’ve always found that 5-star hotel hopping in Colombo for the latest gastronomic fare is de rigueur for the Sri Lankan well-heeled (although Colombo’s young and hip are starting to change this but more on that later). So, as they say, when in Rome …

A Sri Lankan sundowner

“Do you know what these are?” an old family friend asked some years back. That family friend, Uncle Upali, was carefully manipulating a crispy fish cutlet with his fingertips whilst addressing me. They had been freshly made by my mother for the dinner party. “They are Sri Lanka’s secret weapon,“ he continued, “You give these little dynamites to people and they are putty in your hands”.