A Vegan Voyage in Sri Lanka
I wasn’t at all concerned about going to Sri Lanka being vegan, I have got through China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and many trips to France and managed to eat enough, so visiting a country which I know has a lot of dhal, vegetable curries and who use coconut over ghee was quite exciting.
My first snack, just 3 hours after landing, set me on a two-week love affair with coconut roti. On hearing that I didn’t want any cake with my afternoon tea, instead, the chef made me coconut roti, a small round flatbread which can be plain or flavoured with spices or sometimes onion. Paired with sweet onion chutney, coconut sambal and a pot of tea, it was just perfect.
That evening, I had my first taste of rice and curry and from that day on I only made one mistake when it came to food – not asking for the rice and curry. Each evening (and sometimes lunchtimes) I would be presented with a bowl of steaming rice, some small poppadoms, coconut sambal and then a selection of curries, which generally but not always included red lentil dhal, beetroot, green beans, aubergine or okra. It was always a surprise which one I was going to get. Sometimes it included tofu, mushroom, potato, bitter gourd or cabbage. One such meal that was particularly good was in a village where the food was all cooked traditionally in clay pots over wood fires.
Often for lunch we would stop in a town to visit the Hela Bojun Hala, a small food court offering traditional Sri Lankan food, and ‘short eats’ as the snacks are known, all cooked by ladies from the nearby villages, providing them with a vital means of employment in a country where women typically stay at home while the men go out to work.
Here I was introduced to various fried snacks such as wahde – fried vegetable fritters, hoppers – a thin rice and coconut milk pancake cooked in a bowl shape, string hoppers – thin rice noodles cooked into little flat discs, and another of my favourites, the coconut pancake. A rolled-up pancake with coconut sweetened with coconut treacle inside was an absolute treat. It was always welcome on a long car journey paired with a cup of tea.
