If you want to truly understand a country, eat what its people eat. Sri Lanka’s food is one of the most vibrant, complex and delicious culinary traditions in Asia, a living archive of the island’s history, geography and cultural diversity that reveals something new with every meal. In this post, we introduce twelve essential Sri Lankan food and drink experiences that no visit to the island should be without.

Begin with a Sri Lankan breakfast: a plate of warm, lacy string hoppers made from rice flour, served with coconut sambol and dhal curry, a combination of textures and flavours that is simultaneously comforting and deeply complex. Hoppers, the coconut-milk-and-rice-flour bowls with crispy edges and soft centres, are an equally beloved morning staple, best enjoyed with a broken egg cooked in the centre and a generous spoonful of fiery pol sambol. Both dishes are found in small local eateries from Colombo to Jaffna and cost a fraction of their true worth.

Move through the day into the world of Sri Lankan rice and curry  – not a single dish but a complete system of flavour built around a mound of steamed red or white rice surrounded by five to twelve small curries covering every dimension of taste: a fish or meat main, a creamy dhal, a pumpkin curry sweet with coconut milk, a bitter melon preparation, a fresh tomato sambol and always, always, the extraordinary pol sambol of scraped coconut, dried chilli, lime juice and red onion. A proper rice and curry are eaten with the right hand on a banana leaf and doing so changes the experience entirely.

Complete your twelve-flavour journey with a sunset stroll along Galle Face Green in Colombo, where the sea breeze carries the smell of freshly fried isso vade – crispy prawn fritters -from the vendors lining the promenade and end with a glass of thick, sweet buffalo curd drizzled with palm treacle and served in a traditional clay pot at one of the roadside stalls that dot the southern highways. Sri Lanka’s food asks nothing of you except appetite and curiosity – and rewards both in extraordinary measure.