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It's appa and idiappa here
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Sri Lankan food is all about fresh and crisp ingredients. Discover the flavours at a festival on at Residency Towers
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PHOTO: SHAJU JOHN
BALANCED FLAVOURS Chef Publis with some of his preparations
While others may flaunt professional Swiss degrees, Master Chef Publis announces "No Education" almost with pride. The seventy-year-old Director Culinary Affairs and Promotions, of Mount Lavinia Hotel, Sri Lanka, started his career at the very same hotel at the age of 19. "I would cycle to the market to get coal for the ovens," he says.
Lavinia gets its name from a Ceylonese beauty Lovina, daughter of a local headman who had captured the heart of the young Sir Thomas Maitland, Governor General of Ceylon. A tunnel from her father's wine cellar would bring her straight to the mansion. However, when Maitland had to leave Ceylon for Malta, he left his Lovina behind. But he never married.
The cuisine, like the charming love story, is simple yet exotic. This year, the heritage hotel celebrates its bicentennial anniversary. For Chef Publis it is his fiftieth year of association with the hotel. "Lavinia and Chef Publis are the same," says the man who has pretty much established the business of cuisine back home. His books go into detailed instructions on every aspect, from hygiene to the art of cutting vegetables — a vital part of cooking, he insists.
The Chef is in town for a little more than a week and you can sample his famous cuisine at the Sri Lankan Food Festival at Main Street, Residency Towers. When the management of the hotel decided to host the food festival they turned to the Sri Lankan High Commission for suggestions; they flew in the Master himself.
And the staff at Residency aren't the only ones who are so excited about it. At Main Street, happy Sri Lankans thanked the Chef warmly, "It was just like eating a meal in Sri Lanka. Thank you so much," they gushed.
Describing the perfectly balanced flavours will not suffice. You will have to visit this food fest, inaugurated by the Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka, P. M. Amza, to know why Chef Publis is so celebrated back home.
The popular belief here may be Sri Lankan food is similar to our own. But the Chef insists it is very different from Indian food. "We too have something called appa and idiappa, but they are completely different from your appam and idiappam," he says.
"Sri Lankan food doesn't use animal fat, animal milk and artificial colouring. The flavour of a dish is primarily that of the ingredients, and not that of the spices." It's the lentils and the spinach that rule in the thick dal. Spices are used in moderation. Sri Lankan curry powder, for example, consists of coriander, cumin and sweet cumin.
The food, like the Chef says, is all about the freshness, crispness of the ingredients. The egg appa is to be eaten with crispy, deep-fried onions, or crushed, dried tuna with tiny, crunchy pieces of onion. You don't even have to fear something called Cadju Curry. Cashewnuts are cooked just right, in a light coconut milk gravy. Do try the tangy mango adam, a sticky jamlike consistency served with red country rice. The aubergine salad in pickled style is absolutely yummy, so is the wattalappam, a traditional custard made out of coconut milk and palm jaggery.
For all you know when you visit, the Chef may have something as exotic as lamb cooked with honey, in the style of a tribal Ceylonese community, because he promises to change the menu everyday. The Sri Lankan Food Festival will be on till August 27, at Main Street, Residency Towers, Sir Thyagaraya Road, T. Nagar, ph: 28156363.
MEERA MOHANTY
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