A few words about the food

What I present here is a small sample of Sinhalese food. Still, this should give you an idea of what to ask for and what you are likely to get when you enter one of those seedy looking places along the Galle Road in Colombo.

Remember this though; seedy they may look but the food is great! For breakfast you can choose between a variety of things. At home on a day to day basis people will eat rice with a curry or two or bread and the same for breakfast. Less frequently you will get hoppers, string hoppers or pittu. These involve more effort in preparation and are thus less frequently served.

For lunch rice is a must except in the poorest households. There will always be one or two vegetable curries and usually a fish, dried fish or meat curry to accompany the vegetables. Sri Lankan curries have a reputation for heat and this is provided in the sambols. These are mixes of various ingredients but the common ones are always onions and chilies - watch out for the hottest - katta sambol.

For many of the Sinhalese preparations there is no English translation. I am not going to try and explain the ingredients of each dish here. If you are curious then you can look on the Internet at Melani's kitchen ( http://infolanka.com/recipes ) where you will find all kinds of Sri Lankan food, and explore or just try the food out when you get there!

If you go to the market to buy basic provisions such as fruit then a good strategy is to walk around a little listening to the prices. Often the stall holders will be shouting them out: 'potatoes 1 kilo 50 rupees' - something like this. This should help you to get a fair price!

Vocabulary:

Breakfast
T1.5a

Lunch (wet curries)
T1.5b

Lunch (dry curries)
T1.5c

Desserts and fruit
T1.5d

T1.5e

T1.5f

Dialogue:

T1.5g

Later...

T1.5h

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