She’s the Thierry Henry of Sri Lankan cooking – a hipster hopper can’t competeThe other night I went to a Sri Lankan restaurant in London (Paradise – not my review, the name). I have eaten more than my fair share of Sri Lankan food, growing up with a mum who is not only the Thierry Henry of Sri Lankan cooking, but also sees a fat son as the best way of marketing her brand.Sri Lankan food is nothing like Indian: it is hotter, drier, has a different array of flavours, and distinct staples, like hoppers (a bowl-shaped crispy pancake made from fermented rice flour) and coconut sambol (coconut made physically addictive). It hasn’t been taken to the heart of British culture in the same way Indian food has. Many people seem not to realise that they are different cuisines. One of my first standup routines was about the frustrations of going to an Indian restaurant with white friends and being asked for recommendations about a cuisine I had no more understanding of than they did. (The punchline was: “Why don’t you tell me what you know about tortellini, you prick” – sophisticated stuff.) Continue reading...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/07/romesh-ranganathan-sri-lankan-food-finally-cool-dont-tell-my-mum