In traditional families – or where you can get home for lunch, the major meal of the day here in Sri Lanka is at lunchtime. Whether it’s a vast array of fragrant dishes, or a simple ‘packet’ lunch with just a few curries, a malung and some chutney or pickle, rice and curry is everyone’s favourite.
I couldn’t resist snapping this trader eating his packet lunch from home during a quiet time at the Mal Pola – the weekly plant market.
My friend Mo loves to throw a lunchtime bash – her Sunday lunches are legendary among her friends, and we all look forward to the feast she’s sure to serve up for us.
Five chatties on the burners here, and several on the table opposite!
On my birthday trip to Galle last year, while we opted for a slap up lunch on the veranda of Amangalla
(my grilled squid salad was cooked perfectly – succulent, juicy and delicious)
under the shade a tree on the ramparts opposite, a better prepared group of travellers was having a picnic lunch on the grass (watched over by a very attentive dog!).
I’ve been looking for an excuse to share these lunchtime shots with you and this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge theme is the perfect opportunity.
The Wanderlust Gene 
wow, sooo tasty … beautiful shots m … your squid looks divine … and Mo’s pottery … out of this world … 🙂
Those earthy terracotta cooking pots are fabulous, aren’t they? I’ve really had to be firm with myself and not buy a couple of sets of chatties with their heating stands.
And to think I usually just have a bit of cheese, or some quiche and salad! I’ve been robbed.
Definitely! Though dinner here is usually a much more meagre affair.
How do those ladies in black tents manage to eat anything at all? I imagine it’s the same in Sri Lanka as in Seychelles, in that if a meal is without rice, you haven’t eaten. In the staff room at the Poly where I taught, the other teachers would bring in breakfast of rice and curry or stew to eat before we started teacing at 7.30 am. They would eat the same things for lunch at breaktime and sometimes again before going home at 2.pm. I just ate fruit – abundant and mostly free!
Yes Viv, some people can’t function unless they have rice three times a day! A couple of people I know fit into that category. For others, the wide variety of other carbohydrates – including lots of really delicious rice-flour specialities like hoppers – are so enticing that breakfast and dinner are usually the time to eat mung beans, for instance, or chick peas (breakfast), or hoppers, or string hoppers (at night).
The black all-over does present a bit of a problems for eating and drinking (they lift the face veil), but of course they are designed for outside wear, and in the past, when they were designed, a woman wouldn’t be seen out of the house eating or drinking in public.
Nicely done, W-Gene!
Grazi, Tom! Had to try to live up to your delicious cherry tomato and black olive pasta – ooooh, i must say that tasted scrumptious in my mind 🙂
These lunches look so colorful and enticing. I don’t even like squid, but that picture of the squid salad looks delicious. Love these. 🙂
So, does that mean you’d try? So glad it was visually enticing, at any rate! 🙂
That dish I would definitely try!! 🙂
I think you would enjoy it!
I’m not sure that man was pleased that you photographed his black clad ladies. I can’t imagine having to wear a shroud every time I went out.
You’re right, he sussed me that last time! Wouldn’t be my choice, either Debra 🙂
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Very interesting set of photos. To think I live just a hopping distance from Sri Lanka, in Chennai and have not visited your country..shame on me!
Oh well, you’re not alone in that Talkalittledo – still waiting for Madhu to make it across too!
Beautiful patio for the lunchtime bash 🙂 I love squid, but most of the time, they are over-cooked.
Wonderful! Mo’s lunch time bash looks like a lot of fun. You seem to have captured everyone’s ability to relax and enjoy the blessing of the food they have been given. Even the guy eating the wrapped lunch isn’t rushing or gulping down “a quick bite”. No fast food here 😉
What wonderful lunchtimes. And I also love Mo’s patio and chatties.
This was a great challenge. Not only were there some creative replies but some, like yours, offered us views into different cultures through an entirely different lens. Thanks for a peek into a Sri Lanka that many of us would overlook.
Lovely and my goodness Mo must be the perfect friend 😉
Oh yes, and the thing is she’s used to ‘open house’ from when her kids were growing up and the house was always full of their friends, so there’s always enough to share with a stray friend who pops in, famished … 🙂
Your squid looks divine and the shots of the picnickers are lovely, but it is Mo’s clay chatties that grab my attention 🙂 Haven’t eaten food cooked in chatties since we moved to Chennai!
Such great ceramic pots for cooking and sharing. Looks like you have great friends and lovely food to enjoy in such a tropical setting.
The pots are wonderful, aren’t they? Perfect for slow-cooking flavourful curries and when you open the lid to serve, it seems the aromas are enhanced tenfold!
Wonderful 😉 Meals should be a celebration, every weekday, workday lunches, and better not eaten at your desk… oops 😉
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How delicious and transportive!
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I think I’d like to be-friend your friend Mo! 🙂
Oh yeah – you’d love it – she’s a fabulous cook and in fact has begun running cooking classes for tourists – locals next, once she’s persuaded her daughter and son in law to allow her to share her recipes with their fellow Colomboites!
This all looks so good! Love those chatties, and the squid, and the views . . .
how could you resist buying a couple of those chatties, they look amazing
It must be difficult to eat with a burqa hanging in front of your face.
If I were to put my woman in one of those, I would have made sure it was a full tent so that no one could see her sinful eyes (I wouldn’t have used one of those slutty Afghanistan versions of the burqa, where there’s a grid in front of the eyes).
I’d also made her wear gloves of course.
I want to taste your grilled swuid, right now, and eat it in the shade under a tree. But I feel so sorry for women who have to hide themselves, who are carrying their own prisons…