The Spices That Make Sri Lankan Food Unique

Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was known under colonial rule, was one of the most fought-over spice islands in the world. The Portuguese, Dutch and British all came here partly because of what grew in the soil. Cinnamon, pepper, cardamom, cloves. These weren't just trade goods. They shaped the food of the island from the ground up, and they're still there in every dish we cook.

Ceylon cinnamon

True cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, is native to Sri Lanka. The cinnamon used in most of the rest of the world, including most of what's sold in supermarkets, is cassia, a related but different plant. Ceylon cinnamon is lighter, more delicate and less harshly sweet. In Sri Lankan cooking it's used in curries, rice dishes and desserts as a background note rather than a dominant flavour, which is why Sri Lankan food with cinnamon in it doesn't taste like pudding.

Curry leaves

If you've eaten Sri Lankan or South Indian food, you know the smell of curry leaves hitting hot oil. It's one of those aromas that's instantly recognisable once you've encountered it. Curry leaves aren't a garnish. They're a foundation. They go into the oil at the start of cooking and infuse the whole dish with a savoury, citrusy depth that's hard to replicate.

Maldive fish

Maldive fish is sun-dried tuna, hammered into hard chips, and it's one of the most distinctly Sri Lankan ingredients in existence. Used as a flavouring rather than a main ingredient, it adds an umami depth similar to what fish sauce or dried shrimp does in Southeast Asian cooking. It's in sambals, curries and many traditional Sri Lankan dishes. It gives food a quality that's almost impossible to identify unless you know it's there.

Sri Lankan roasted curry powder

The thing that most separates Sri Lankan curries from Indian curries is the use of roasted curry powder. Standard curry powder uses raw or lightly toasted spices. Sri Lankan roasted curry powder takes coriander, cumin, fennel, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and black pepper and roasts them much darker before grinding. The result is a deeper, smokier, more complex spice base. The dark colour of many Sri Lankan curries comes directly from this.

Black pepper

Sri Lanka produces some of the world's finest black pepper, and it shows in the food. Pepper is used more heavily in Sri Lankan cooking than in most Indian regional cuisines. Jaffna cooking in particular uses an enormous amount. It gives the heat a different character to chilli, more pervasive, more aromatic, warming from the inside rather than burning the mouth.

What this adds up to

The spice profile of Sri Lankan food is the result of geography, history and centuries of cooking. It's not a combination you can replicate by tweaking an Indian curry. The ingredients are different, the techniques are different, the balance is different. Which is why people who try it for the first time often say it's unlike anything they've had before. It is.