Eating in Jaffna: The Food of Sri Lanka's North

The north of Sri Lanka has been through more than any other part of the country and what has emerged from that experience, culinarily, is something both distinct and extraordinary. Jaffna cooking is Tamil in its roots and its flavours — a different spice vocabulary from the south, a heavier reliance on dried fish and palmyrah products, and a heat that is genuinely serious in a way that the milder south sometimes is not.

Jaffna crab curry is the dish that people travel specifically for. Mud crabs from the Jaffna lagoons, cooked in a dark, intense coconut and spice gravy that requires bread or rice to do justice to every drop of the sauce. The crabs are large and the extraction of meat is a hands-on, deeply satisfying process. Order it at a local restaurant rather than a hotel. The versions served in family-run spots in Jaffna town itself are the definitive ones.

Palmyrah products are specific to the north. The palmyrah palm — the northern landscape is defined by it — produces a sap that is fermented into toddy, distilled into arrack, or reduced into a sweet treacle. Palmyrah flour goes into certain sweets and breads. The young shoots are cooked as a vegetable. The entire tree is used in a way that speaks of a culture that has learned to make the most of what the land gives.

Murukku, the deep-fried spiral rice flour snack, is made in Jaffna with a particular care and in particular varieties that you do not find elsewhere. Buy it fresh from a bakery in Jaffna town and eat it still warm. It is one of those snacks that is so much better fresh that the packaged version feels like a different food entirely.