Curry dominates most Asian gastronomies. Yet, apart from the same surname, curry is distinct as the region and people as the country it hails from. Until recently, for the ordinary European, curries were nothing more than stews dressed up in garish pastes and powders that were nothing more than turmeric and oils. However today, curries are the vogue in gastronomy with Indian and Thai as the supermodels in culinary fashion. Yet, Sri Lankan curries with the same vibrancy and strains as these Asian cuisines are languishing in the backburner.

Sri Lankan food is assumed by many to be a subset of Indian cuisine. However, the influences of Sri Lankan culinary reach far beyond the Indian continent. Not only was Sri Lanka the strategic node in the Silk Road, but Sri Lankans themselves were great travelers. Thus, while entertaining traders and travelers from many distant regions; they themselves went to far off shores as ambassadors. Indeed history suggests that Sri Lankans enjoyed sophistications far beyond our current realms, but did not degenerate the society as it did to civilizations like the Roman Empire – it simplified life to build on creativity. Thus, there is an elaboration even in the simplest dish and the preparatory methods are so many that Sri Lankan curries provide perfect examples to the vast array of dishes that are categorized – almost carelessly – as curries.

Buddhism is believed to be strong influence in the vegetarian emphasis in Sri Lankan fare, but there are other reasons such as the almost limitless availability of vegetarian fare growing literally on the doorstep, the Royal decree that forbade the common man from harming beast or plant in the rainforests and the auyrvedhic principles that concluded the excessive production of stress hormones during an animal’s final moments contributed to painful diseases. This Royal Decree was flouted by the colonial forces and meat became more freely available. While chicken became a regular feature, beef and pork took a long while to become part of the diet.

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The combination of Buddhism, principles of the ancient homeopathy – auyrvedha, the Royal decree forbidding common man from hunting in the Royal forests, the abundant availability of vegetarian fare all contributed to a diet rich in natural, vegetarian produce. However the paradox here is that while Sri Lankans have been so reluctant to include meat in their diets for so long – even after the colonial influences, they have not had the same compunction in including fish in their diet.

Fish, especially shellfish like the crab and those caught by nets often suffer a more painful ending than most beasts killed for food. Yet, almost all Sri Lankans do not consider fish as meat. In fact many who identify themselves as vegetarian do eat fish. In almost every curry and sambol, maldive fish is a regular seasoning.

Again, just as the vegetarian fare, fish is available in abundance in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a tiny island surrounded by the ocean and richly veined with rivers, lakes and water tanks and in each thrive a splendid ecosystem, which brings in a variety of catch of fish. Thus, even in the middle of the country that had no ready access to the sea and its produce, people still had an abundant supply of fish.

Unlike the rest of the wildlife, fish was not as protected by a Royal decree and what ever reservation aurvedha might have had, it was shadowed by its sheer availability. The littoral was especially populated with produce from the sea and often the lagoons, which has resulted in some of the truly signature dishes of Sri Lanka such as the Sri Lankan crab curry, fish ambul thiyal and koonissa malluma. The popularity of fish as food has led to various preservations and karola and the maldive fish must be the most famous of these preserved fish.

Maldive fish are prepared from fillets of cleaned tuna that have been carefully wrapped in coconut leaves, cloth and more commonly now with polyethylene and buried in the hot sand where water would not seep. The buried ground is well covered from the top as well to stop rain water dripping into the buried fish. This is kept thus for a month or more until all the moisture has evaporated and resembles more a dried and hardened twig than a fish fillet. This is used as both a spice in Sri Lankan cuisine as well as a ‘bite’. Families often gather around bowls of malive fish pieces cut larger than that used for cooking with pieces of fresh coconut and raw shallots and this is considered a cozy way to spend especially a rainy afternoon.