Hidden Kitchens of Sri Lanka

On the reawakening Jaffna Peninsula, war widows cook crab curry and fry spicy snacks, while in a remote eastern village, Sumith stirs vats of smoky milk toffee over an open fire in a factory behind his home. Bamini cooks thosai for the Hindu temple feast, and old William boils up his Ceylon tea at Colombo’s dawn wholesale market, just as he’s done every day for sixty years. And at Monaragala Prison, in one of the poorest districts in Sri Lanka, the inmates prepare a fragrant fish curry with pol roti.

Hidden Kitchens of Sri Lanka is far more than a collection of traditional recipes; stunningly vivid photographs, Bree interweaves recipes with heartfelt stories about the people who opened not only their kitchens but their homes and hearts to her, to create a moving yet hopeful picture of Sri Lanka today.