History Archives - Buth Kuddeh

48,000-year-old arrowheads reveal early human innovation in the Sri Lankan rainforest

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 23:41:53 +0000

Michelle Langley, Oshan Wedage, Patrick Roberts

The Conversation

June 13, 2020

Archaeological excavations deep within the rainforests of Sri Lanka have unearthed the earliest evidence for hunting with bows and arrows outside Africa.

At Fa-Hien Lena, a cave in the heart of Sri Lanka’s wet zone forests, we discovered numerous tools made of stone, bone, and tooth – including a number of small arrow points carved from bone which are about 48,000 years old.

48,000 year old evidence of bow and arrow use june 2020

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Coriander (Coriandrum sativum)

Paul van Reyk — Sat, 21 Dec 2019 00:36:36 +0000

Known from Sanskrit writing from as early as c.600 BC, coriander (Sinhala kothamalli) is a relative of parsley and cumin and is considered indigenous to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean whence it made its way overland to South Asia. While the leaves are used extensively throughout India and South East Asia as a fresh herb chopped and sprinkled over food prior to serving, it’s the seed that is used primarily in Sri Lankan cooking, being one of the five BIG Cs along with cumin, chili, curry leaves and cinnamon. Charmaine Solomon says of this peculiarity “Some good cooks of Sri Lanka turn up their noses at it, saying it smells like garden bugs. (In fact, its name comes from the Greek koris, meaning ‘bug’)”. I know what they mean having regularly to battle those orange backed stink bugs in my citrus trees who do have a remarkably similarly pungent smell. However, I do use both the leaves and the seeds, but stick with tradition and use the seeds only in my Sri Lankan dishes.

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To refrain from destroying living creatures: Buddhist influences

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:43:04 +0000

Sinhalese Buddhists have eaten meat for centuries. Excavations at Anuradhapura indicates that ‘the expansion of the city and increasingly social complexity require a food supply which certainly appears to have involved the extensive exploitation of four main animal types.

Buddhism

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Chena cultivation: precursor to all Sri Lankan cultivation.

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:39:15 +0000

The beginning of rice cultivation in Sri Lanka is likely to have been under chena cultivation. The Mahvamsa makes mention of the yakka queen Kuvaṇṇā offers rice to Vijaya and his men at a time well pre-dating the establishment of the great irrigation projects of the Sinhala kings.

Chenna cultivation

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Chow chow in the Christmas cake: Chinese influences

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:34:22 +0000

Chinese food in Sri Lanka continues to sit apart, identified clearly as Chinese and eaten for its exoticism/foreignness and not as an integrated part of the cuisine. No dishes of Chinese origin make it into the various editions of Hilda Deutrom’s Ceylon Daily News Cookery Book, the foundation text of Sri Lankan Burgher cookery, nor into Chandra Dissanayake’s Ceylon Cookery.

Chinese foods

Sri Lankan Christmas Cake

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More than oil balls: Dutch influences

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:29:16 +0000

‘It remains a mystery how the sole contribution to world culinary heritage made by a country with a virtual monopoly over the trade in spices should have been the Dutch doughnut or “oil ball”.’

Bert Natter 2005

This is a pretty harsh judgment and one that doesn’t take a lot of countering when you turn to Sri Lankan cuisine as will become clear.

Dutch Influences

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‘They kill Deer and fry the Flesh over the fire’: Foodways of the Wanniya-laeto

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:26:55 +0000

Both the present day Wanniya-laeto and Sri Lankan paleo-archaeologists claim the Wanniya-laeto as the Indigenous population of Sri Lanka, in the sense of being descendants of the earliest known human settlers of the island, dating the ancestors from at least the Neolithic period and possibly further back to the Mesolithic Balangoda cultures. Descriptions of their foodways give both a look back to the basic food elements and cooking practices present in Sri Lankan cuisine today.

Hunting and gathering

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Cakes and the Columbian Exchange: Portuguese influences

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:21:52 +0000

The influence of the Portuguese runs much deeper than sweets. Sri Lankan cuisine is almost unthinkable without the range of fruit and vegetables that followed the Portuguese and the Spanish out of the America’s, via what is now termed the Columbian Exchange, and into Africa and Asia.

Portuguese influences

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The most lovely vegetable curries: South Indian influences

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:17:14 +0000

Southern Indians have had a long history of settlement in Sri Lanka and there are recognizable affinities between Sri Lankan foodways and those of Southern India.

South Indian Influences

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May for me prosper: Vedic influences

Paul van Reyk — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:06:30 +0000

‘May for me prosper, through the sacrifice, milk, sap, ghee, honey, eating and drinking at the common table, ploughing, rains, conquest, victory, wealth, riches. May for me prosper, through the sacrifice, low-grade food, freedom from hunger, rice, barley, sesame, kidney beans, vetches, wheat, lentils, millets, panicum grains and wild rice .May for me prosper, through the sacrifice, trees, plants, that which grows in ploughed land, and that which grows in unploughed land.’

Yajurveda (c.800 BCE)

Vedic Influences in Early Sinhala Foodways

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