THE FORGOTTEN FLAVOURS OF SRI LANKA

There is a quiet power in food that few other things possess.

- By Dewmi Dodhani

A single aroma can pull you back decades, to a childhood kitchen heavy with steam, to a grandmother's hands moving instinctively over a clay pot, or to a roadside stall glowing under a flickering bulb on a rainy evening. Food is memory made edible. Yet in Sri Lanka today, many of these memories are slowly slipping away. The flavours that once defined our everyday lives are being edged out by instant meals, fast food chains, and the promise of modern convenience. With each forgotten recipe, we lose more than a taste. We lose a fragment of our cultural identity.Sri Lankan cuisine has always been deeply personal. It was never just about feeding the body; it was about nurturing relationships, preserving tradition, and expressing care. Meals were not rushed affairs. They were rituals shaped by time, patience, and intuition. Yet as lifestyles change and the pace of life accelerates, these rituals are becoming rarer, replaced by efficiency and familiarity.

For many Sri Lankans, childhood is inseparable from food. It lives in the scent of dhal curry gently bubbling on the stove, in the crackle of mustard seeds meeting hot oil, and in the unmistakable aroma of freshly grated coconut being mixed into pol sambol. These were not dishes prepared from recipe books. They were learnt by watching, tasting, adjusting, and remembering. Every household had its own variations, its own secrets, passed down quietly from one generation to the next.