Sri Lankan cooking is built on spices, and the south has its own distinctive style: bold, sour and often fiery.
The essentials
- Cinnamon: true Ceylon cinnamon, delicate and sweet
- Curry leaves: fried at the start of almost every curry
- Goraka: a dried fruit that gives southern fish curries their sourness
- Roasted curry powder: darker and deeper than the unroasted kind
- Chilli: in many forms, from fresh green to dried and flaked
Learn to cook
Several guesthouses and homestays near the park offer cooking classes. You usually help prepare a full lunch, then sit down to eat what you made.
Taking spices home
Buy from local markets rather than tourist shops, and look for whole spices. They keep their flavour much longer.
