{"id":129401,"date":"2024-01-30T18:57:43","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T18:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=129401"},"modified":"2024-01-30T18:58:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T18:58:09","slug":"savouring-tales-of-sri-lanka-through-her-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/savouring-tales-of-sri-lanka-through-her-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Savouring tales of Sri Lanka through her food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Savouring tales of Sri Lanka through her food<\/span><\/h2>\n
Here for the GLF and Gourmet Galle, Cynthia Shanmugalingam, author of the much acclaimed cookbook Rambutan talks to Adilah Ismail<\/div>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Celebrating family, food and her heritage: Cynthia Shanmugalingam. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:<\/span><\/strong>Sundaytimes<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Image Source:<\/span><\/strong>Sundaytimes<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Cynthia Shanmugalingam realized the massive role food played in her life and in her family\u2019s trajectory in and out of Sri Lanka when she came to Sri Lanka on a visit just after her grandmother died. They would go to the fish market every day to choose the freshest of fish and cooked vegetables plucked from the garden. As she watched her mother cook and navigate an open fire kitchen with dexterity, Cynthia realized that this style of cooking was not represented in London, where she lived, and she began feeling that she had a unique take on Sri Lankan cuisine that she wanted to share. She had just begun a restaurant incubator to help people start restaurants \u2013 this proved to be a great environment to be immersed in to learn about the restaurant industry \u2013 and this feeling began to ferment, gaining potency.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She began plans to open a<\/span>
\nSri Lankan restaurant in London when COVID descended. Like many industries heaving under the toll of the coronavirus, the hospitality business was in disarray. It was a terrible time to open a restaurant. A friend suggested that she distill her learnings for the restaurant into a cookbook and so the idea for Cynthia Shanmugalingam\u2019s cookbook Rambutan was born.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI felt like, especially because of my immigrant perspective, and because I\u2019m Tamil, there was this insider-outsider story that I wanted to tell about the island and about our cuisine, and I didn\u2019t want to shy away from the history of the island. And so, it\u2019s a book about family and about family recipes and it\u2019s a book about my perspective of coming here on holiday and having family come to live with us and being caught between two worlds, I guess,\u201d says Cynthia, newly married and in Sri Lanka for the Galle Lit Fest and its partner festival Gourmet Galle, reflecting on the origins of the cookbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rambutan, published in 2022, was received with praise and acclaim. It was winner of the Fortnum & Mason Best Debut Cookbook Award 2023 and lauded as one of the best cookbooks of 2022 by Delicious Magazine, Bon Appetit, the New York Times and LA Times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cynthia Shanmugalingam\u2019s cookbook Rambutan\u00a0<\/em>is a love letter to Sri Lankan food and its rich culinary history. Packed with over 80 recipes, the cookbook combines memoir, socio-political history, personal photographs and vivid pictures of Sri Lanka to tell multiple stories through food. Rambutan, in many ways, feels like having a deeply irreverent, chatty friend guide you through the ins and outs of Sri Lankan food, demystifying it and experimenting with substitutions and adaptations.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book uses nine essays as literary springboards to dive into various recipes. Cynthia\u2019s family looms large in the book, and we see how her personal history is intertwined closely with food. \u201cIt was a beautiful experience for me to think of all the memories I had and there\u2019s no memory I have of the island that isn\u2019t touched by family. I wanted to evoke some of those powerful feelings,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

We hear of her mother, who at 40 years of age, began English classes on Thursdays and Fridays in the UK, went on to complete her GCSEs, A Levels and trained as a teaching assistant while working a full-time job in a factory, cooking for a family of eight and looking after five children \u2013 two of whom weren\u2019t her own. She writes of her father, who worked as a child labourer until he was fourteen, was the only student from his batch at Nelliady Central who got into the University of Peradeniya, moved to London in 1968 and the racism he faced while navigating work and life in a new country.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most poignant moments in the book, is when Cynthia writes about her father\u2019s little brother and the layers of displacement that occur for diaspora contending with notions of homeland and the loss of familial bonds. Her uncle was the one to introduce jakfruit, rambutan and mangosteen into her taste lexicon, and she writes of the emotional and physical whiplash they felt when he passed away as he was one of the strongest links they had to Sri Lanka.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps what also marks Rambutan is Cynthia\u2019s homage to beloved Sri Lankan staples, and bold playfulness with technique and ingredients. Rambutan is a reminder that recipes are never static, that there are many paths to a Sri Lankan dish and you\u2019re always welcome to forge your own.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Rambutan, Cynthia roasts beetroot and pumpkin before currying them to coax the natural sweetness out of the vegetables. She terms her lamprais \u2018lamprai-sh\u2019 and takes care to note that her version pays homage to a lamprais and is not meant to be a lamprais (or as she refers to it in the book: \u201cthe good-looking Sri Lankan cousin of the famous Malaysian breakfast dish, nasi lemak\u201d). In Cynthia\u2019s version of lamprais, fried meatballs are substituted for frikkadels and panko-crusted soft-boiled eggs, yellow rice, a slow-cooked short-rib beef curry and a radish and cardamom yoghurt make up the lamprais. For puttu, she offers up instant couscous as a substitute for rice flour and coconut. Cynthia\u2019s version of watalappan is a watalappan tart that is baked instead of steamed. In her maalu paan recipe, she incorporates the Japanese Tangzhong technique to yield fluffy, pillowy buns which last longer.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also alludes to the social histories of many dishes and cultural cross-pollination that occurs in Sri Lankan cuisine. Love cake for instance, she notes, may have Arabic rather than European roots given its use of rose water and similarity to basbousa and similar sweets in the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another vital feature is the cookbook\u2019s dealing of uncomfortable histories that make up the island\u2019s narrative and even familial narratives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a very important part of understanding the cuisine and understanding the meaning of it. I never want to do, in any of my work, a whitewashed idea of Sri Lanka. Like every country, it has its tragedies and its losses and that is part of it. And I feel like people want to know that. If you look at Anthony Bourdain\u2019s work and other cooks, you know food is a way to discover new places and not just discover it on a surface level. For instance, we celebrate Sri Lankan tea, but it\u2019s not enjoyed by the people who pluck it with incredible skill and who have done so for centuries. I wanted to make sure we were telling and understanding stories from \u2013 as many as I knew \u2013 the whole history of the island and from different communities,\u201d reflects Cynthia.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a chapter on Sri Lankan Muslim street food, the cookbook reflects on the\u00a0Kattankudy<\/em>\u00a0Mosque Massacre and the killing of around 150 Muslim men and boys by the LTTE. In a chapter about short eats, she writes about the killing of her mother\u2019s deaf cousin by the<\/span>
\nSri Lankan army for breaching curfew while taking some food for his aged parents, and the torture and detainment of a 13-year-old cousin who was left with debilitating PTSD he never recovered from.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel conscious that there is a younger generation of diaspora<\/span>
\nSri Lankans who grow up outside the island \u2013 and even those who grow up inside the island \u2013 who don\u2019t know some of our history. It\u2019s not taught well \u2013 I would say neither here nor abroad. And in any small way I always try and do that in anything that I write about \u2013 to try and create a three-dimensional story and experience,\u201d says Cynthia.<\/span><\/p>\n

If writing a cookbook is a solitary activity, running a restaurant is the opposite of it and is a gruelling exercise in collaboration. Cynthia\u2019s restaurant Rambutan\u00a0<\/em>opened its doors in London in March 2023, hot on the heels of the success of her cookbook and marks its first year this year. The restaurant, which is in London\u2019s Borough Market, much like its namesake cookbook, showcases Sri Lankan food with an emphasis on Cynthia\u2019s Tamil heritage.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a book and a restaurant out in the world in quick succession, the recent years have been hectic (\u201cI haven\u2019t slept that much over the past two years,\u201d she laughs ruefully) but Cynthia is just getting started.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ve been thinking about doing something here [in Sri Lanka] actually. [\u2026] I feel like what Rambutan is doing is a little bit different and it could work well here. I would love to do maybe something on the beach that celebrated the cuisine and also Tamil cuisine with the diaspora touch. And again, cooking over a fire \u2013 that I think we do well in London.\u00a0 And then, we will do another one in London. I don\u2019t know if it will be another Rambutan \u2013 that\u2019s to be decided \u2013 but it will definitely be Sri Lankan cooking. I think there\u2019s so much more to explore and to specialize in and different aspects of the cuisine to celebrate,\u201d says Cynthia.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
A recipe from Rambutan: Jaffna Crab Curry<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Serves 4<\/span><\/p>\n