Indigenous and Traditional Foods of Sri Lanka Sachithra Mihiranie1, Jagath K
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Mihiranie et al. Journal of Ethnic Foods (2020) 7:42 Journal of Ethnic Foods https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-020-00075-z REVIEW ARTICLE Open Access Indigenous and traditional foods of Sri Lanka Sachithra Mihiranie1, Jagath K. Jayasinghe1*, Chamila V. L. Jayasinghe2 and Janitha P. D. Wanasundara3* Abstract Indigenous and traditional foods of Sri Lanka inherit a long history and unique traditions continued from several thousands of years. Sri Lankan food tradition is strongly inter-wound with the nutritional, health-related, and therapeutic reasoning of the food ingredients and the methods of preparation. The diverse culinary traditions and preparations reflect multipurpose objectives combining in-depth knowledge of flora and fauna in relation to human well-being and therapeutic health benefits. Trans-generational knowledge dissemination related to indigenous and traditional food is now limited due to changing lifestyles, dwindling number of knowledge holders, and shrinking floral and faunal resources. Awareness on the relationship between non-communicable diseases and the diet has garnered the focus on traditional ingredients and foods by the consumers and major food producers in Sri Lanka. This review presents concise details on the indigenous and traditional foods of Sri Lanka, with scientific analysis when possible. Keywords: Ethnic foods, Traditional ingredients, Food preservation, Food preparation, Health benefits, Sri Lanka Introduction healthy life, cultural legacy, and religious concepts of the Indigenous and traditional foods of Sri Lanka present a ethnicities of the land and have been the key to sustain a perfect blend of cultural diversity with human wisdom traditional food culture in Sri Lanka; evidence are found that has been evolved through generations in establish- in written literal work and archeological sources as well ing a cultural heritage and an identity. In the Sri Lankan as folklore. culture, food is treated with the highest gratitude, re- Archeological findings, ancient travelers’ records, and spect, and generosity, expressed by sharing and offering early world maps are living evidence for the significance to fellow humans, animals as well as the divine powers. of this island in geo-politics and sea trade since ancient Sri Lankans love to share foods with neighbors, family, times. Elements of Afro-Arabic, Central Asian, Euro- and friends; house visits are always accompanied with pean, South-east Asian, and Oriental food cultures that bundles of food items. Some foods and the preparation followed with the trade activities, royal marriages, and know-how are specialties of the locality. Trans- invasions have been customized to align with the habits, generational knowledge transmission of food and food the culture, and the palate of island inhabitants while ingredients is inter-woven with regular maintenance of keeping the indigenous and traditional food culture in a nutshell. A significant geographic differentiation can be * Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] seen in traditional foods aligning with the eco- and bio- Common names of foods and ingredients provided in parenthesis and in diversity of the island. Indigenous and Ayurveda medi- italics are Sinhala language names unless otherwise the Latin name of the organism/plant. cine holds a strong base and provides recommendations 1Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, with clear and defined identity on the ingredients, prep- University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Gangodawila, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka aration methods, and consumption in order to maintain 3Saskatoon Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saskatoon, SK S7N 0X2, Canada a healthy life while preventing and treating major dis- Full list of author information is available at the end of the article eases and minor ailments. Traditionally, the primary knowledge holders are the community elders (both male © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Mihiranie et al. Journal of Ethnic Foods (2020) 7:42 Page 2 of 19 and female) and indigenous medical practitioners who (Mahavamsa) and since 1972 the country declared Sri are well versed about the local flora and fauna, their me- Lanka (Sinhala) or Ilankei (Tamil). dicinal values, and the ingredients and preparations. The present review describes the essentials of indigen- Food consumption patterns of pre- and proto- ous and traditional foods of Sri Lanka, for the first time, historic humans of Sri Lanka providing a perspective analysis in science, technology, The pre-historic man of Sri Lanka is known as the and nutrition of food and preparations when possible. Balangoda Man (Homo sapiens balangodensis) belong- Ancient texts and books written on Sri Lanka by various ing to the Pleistocene/Holocene epoch boundary in the authors and other published media and discussions with geo-chronological scale [4], in which the Mesolithic different individuals holding traditional knowledge were period of archeological timescale coincides. The oldest consulted in generating this condensed review. human fossil evidence in South Asia (~ 45,000 to 38,000 calibrated years before present) were found in the rock shelters and caves scattered in all ecoregions of the is- Geographical and climatic perspective land (Fig. 1a, b, and c) [1, 5–8]. The archeo-zoological Geo-positioning and climate of the country are highly and archeo-botanical evidence along with the microlithic relevant to the available food sources and existence of and osseous tools and other artifacts found in these rock various food traditions. Sri Lanka is a tropical island po- shelters indicate that the nutritional needs of these early sitioned between 5° 55' and 9° 51' North latitudes and human inhabitants have been supported by a number of 79° 42' and 81° 53' East longitudes in the south of the In- sources [1, 5–7]. These include a variety of small and dian peninsula. The island and area of 65,610 km2 large animals and plant sources found above and below bears distinguishable elevation (Fig. 1a; central high- ground, and in the aquatic environments. Material evi- lands, plains, and the coastal belt), rainfall (Fig. 1b; dence dating back to 2700 BCE support the involvement wet, intermediate, and dry zones), and vegetation (Fig. of pre-historic inhabitants in plant material processing, 1c; closed rainforest, more open intermediate tropical plant domestication, and pottery manufacturing, and the forest, and open grassland) zones [1]. The terrain of transition from forager, hunter-gatherer to agricultural, the island is mostly low, flat to rolling plains with a more sedentary lifestyle [1, 5, 8, 9]. mountains in the South-central area. The island coastline is 1,340 km long and inland water bodies Foods of indigenous people cover 2,905 km2. Several offshore islands account for The Veddā (a.k.a. Aadi Vaasin, Wanniyala-eththo)isa 342 km2 area. The island receives monsoonal, convec- group of people with indigenous ancestry, ~ 10,000 in tional, and depressional rains annually, with < 900 number now, and confined to inland isolated pockets ex- mm in the driest areas (North-western and South- tending from the Eastern and North-eastern slopes of eastern regions) to > 5000 mm in the wettest areas the hill country and the Eastern and North-central parts (Western slopes and Central highlands). Mean annual of the country [10]. They inherit an ancient culture that temperature (MAT) varies between 26.5 °C and values the interdependency of social, economic, environ- 28.5 °C, with the altitudes > 1800 m marking MAT of mental, and spiritual systems. The Great Genealogy/ 15.9 °C, and the coldest temperatures in January and Dynasty or Mahāvaṃsa, an ancient non-canonical text the warmest temperatures in April and August [2]. Of written in the fifth century CE on the Kings of Sri Lanka the total land area, ~ 19% is arable, and agriculture (the first version covers from 543 BCE to 304 CE) re- accounts for ~ 44% of the workforce and 12% of the cords Veddā’s origin dating back to the fifth to the sixth GDP [3]. century BCE. Recent studies show that Veddā is genetic- Crucial positioning in the middle of the Indian Ocean ally distinct from other populations in Sri Lanka [11–13] and to the extreme south of the Indian Peninsula to- and most likely descends from early Homo sapiens who gether with the protective natural harbors and, floral roamed the island. Hunting has been the mainstay of and faunal richness have been the key elements that this group and skills still remain, using bow and arrows attracted many global travelers, explorers, and trading to hunt forest animals [14] and aquatic fish species that nations to this island. Ancient