Dec 23 2016.
views 997Christmas in Sri Lanka doesn’t start on the 25th; nor does it start on the first of December. Instead, the festive spirit kicks in during mid-November, and while some might be surprised by this as the island is predominantly a Buddhist nation, this is a true testament of peaceful co-habitation in a cultural and ethnic melting pot that is Sri Lanka. The beginning of the season is marked with email inboxes pinging with multiple notifications of all the upcoming offers on your card, the roads coming alive with lights and brilliant decorations (and the traffic), shops and offices getting into the spirit with personalized Christmas trees and face lifts, delicious smells can be found wafting where sticky sweet Christmas treats are made, and Sri Lankans everywhere start their own little pre-season rituals.
One thing which every Sri Lankan actively looks forward to is the food - and not just the sweets with hints of brandy and what would normally be considered an obscene amount of fruits and sugar - but in particular, the Christmas lunch. Lunch time on the 25th of December, is where the host and guest come together through food and milk wine, to toast to another year gone by.
Forget everything you’ve seen in Hollywood movies about stuffed turkey, and banish any memories of Mr. Bean with his head inside the bird. That’s not to say that in some households you wouldn’t come across the large glistening bird taking up two-thirds of the table following hours of slaving in the kitchen and multiple burns from the oven, but that is not the main feature of the Sri Lankan lunch table at Christmas. Sri Lankans instead do Christmas lunch very differently.
The preparations themselves begin from the previous day. The meats need to be marinated with chillies and spice and left overnight, and the plates and dishes for the many many different items need to be washed (an activity which takes up a good hour depending on how delicate the china is deemed - and how satisfied your mother is with your work). Come Christmas morning, it’s not unusual to see (or rather hear) everyone in the hosting family being yelled at to pull their weight and prepare for the guests; guests who are probably still sleeping in or enjoying a breakfast made up of cakes and goodies delivered by neighbours. Vegetables will be sliced and prepped in an assortment of ways, piping hot dhal will be made by the kilos, the potato curry will be set aside as reserved for the little ones who don’t like spice, and depending on your food preferences, chicken, beef, pork, seafood - you name it - will be grilled, boiled, made into curries and salads, and maybe even experimented with in the form of a new dish picked off TLC, or a desire to be the next Gordon Ramsay or Nigella Lawson.
But the crowning glory of any festive event in a Sri Lankan household, more so during Christmas, is none other than the aromatic yellow basmati rice, cooked with herbs one would balk at on any other day. Yes, the famous island yellow rice. Saved for special occasions due to its price tag, and looked forward to by everyone - because nothing pairs as well with the spicy dishes, the brinjal moju and papadam, quite like warm and fluffy yellow rice does.
The turkey might be the crowning glory in Europe, but in the sunny tropics, the reality of the Sri Lankan Christmas lunch table is the yellow rice. So don’t be surprised when the chocolate biscuit pudding is passed up for a second serving of yellow rice on the 25th this month.
By Cassandra Van Heer
1 Comments
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