First off, a belated thanks to the Mutiny for letting me stay a month longer. I’m excited to be here, and even more excited that my topics now know no bounds. Brace yourselves. Huddle in the bunker.
You all know I love to write about food. And I love Sri Lanka. So what would make me sadder than anything? (Subtract conflict in Sri Lanka from consideration.) This piece about a Sri Lankan restaurant, from the Village Voice.
My friend K sent me this. (Thanks, K!) There’s so much wrong with it that I hardly know where to begin. But what struck me most was something I’ve been seeing more and more in coverage of Sri Lanka: gratuitous inclusion or overemphasis on religion. There’s enough carnage in Sri Lanka that I suppose people feel compelled to cover or mention the country. At the same time, they feel that they ought to smush news or writing about it into the Religion v. Religion WWE format currently favored by those discussing 9/11 and its aftermath. Sietsema’s lede:
If it weren’t for almost perpetual civil war, Sri Lanka would be a model of ethnic and religious diversity. Four of the world’s chief faiths—Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity—live side-by-side on the teardrop-shaped island once known as Ceylon.
Let’s look at that again:
If it weren’t for almost perpetual civil war, Sri Lanka would be a model of ethnic and religious diversity.
In math terms:
Almost perpetual civil war [along ethnic and to a lesser extent, religious lines] + model of ethnic and religious diversity = NOT A MODEL OF ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY!
So why start like that? And then the whole story is suffused with religious and exoticizing language.
Not long ago, getting good Sri Lankan food required a pilgrimage, too. Staten Island’s Victory Boulevard hosts several small cafés anchored by a mosque, and there’s a slightly more ambitious Sri Lankan eatery in a remote Hindu neighborhood in Flushing. But now a full-blown Sri Lankan restaurant has appeared near Gramercy Park, like a sign from the deity (or deities).
All emphases mine. (As K pointed out, forget that Sigiri, another Sri Lankan restaurant, has already been in Manhattan for quite some time.) Read on: according to Sietsema, any Sri Lankan restaurant in New York must satisfy Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims.
Nirvana’s best main courses are similarly anchored by an exotic starch. Pittu arrives like an encoded message from outer space—a perfect white cylinder compacted of beaten rice and shredded coconut, which begins to crumble and flake as it lands on your table.… Other strange and singular Sri Lankan starches…
First of all, pittu is apparently FROM SPACE. Second: Call the alliteration police! Nayagan, can you deduct pittu-points for this?
Now, this randomly religious restaurant review would be perhaps not such a big deal if it were not part of a larger pattern I’ve been observing. Coverage of Sri Lanka all too often gets skewed because it does not fit in the box of Religion v. Religion. Sietsema’s review mentions the word “ethnic†once, and the word “Sinhalese†once. While there is certainly a religious element to the conflict, it is hardly the only or even the dominant one.
I’m not in favor of deepening the chasms that exist in discussion of Sri Lanka, but when bringing that discussion to new participants, I’d like to see it reflected more accurately.
Other examples:
The Christian Science Monitor on Muslims in Sri Lanka. Asking if they’re “ripe for fundamentalism†is not any better just because the headline—and at least one subhead—ends in a question mark. This is not at all the story in this situation: the story is that there’s a huge population of victimized, displaced, largely ignored Muslims.
Dalrymple’s passing reference in the NYT to the “Sri Lankan Hindu extremists” who killed Rajiv Gandhi. The LTTE was responsible for the death of Rajiv Gandhi, but the organization is secular, and has Christian and Hindu members. Indeed, the Christian Science Monitor story indicates that it’s had Muslim members! But this does not fit into the commonly understood framework of religiously driven terrorism. (Check out Walter Laqueur for more on this.) And credit to Ramesh Rao, who has written about this elsewhere (although I certainly do not agree with everything he writes!)
This Sepia thread: Here. ‘Nuff said.
This, sadly, seems to me the most accurate take.
Now, the question is, what should people be doing about it? It would be super to have a productive discussion about it. But what conditions must be in place for that to happen?
Don’t let any Sri Lankans participate.
Good post though. As for what we should do…sadly I think this lady says it best – things have gotten so bad that there isn’t much to do right now but wait and hope it passes.
Oh, retorts, that makes me so sad. There ARE moderate voices out there that should be heard, and I think we should fight for that. Call me an idealist.
Your link, btw, is brilliant. I’m hoping to blog about Groundviews sometime soon.
1) woot egg hoppers!! 2) Look, you’re 100% right that it’s naive to simply place the Sri Lankan conflict into a “religion v. religion” box. The conflict is more ethnic/linguistic than religious, BUT, that said, there is a strong overlay of religion (yes, there are Christians on both sides)–e.g., LTTE ethnically cleansed Tamil-speaking Muslims from Jaffna (I guess one could say that that highlights the ethnic nature, since the Muslims are not ethnically Tamil, but you can see the obvious religious overlap, no?–and, that fact highlights the strong correlation of ethnicity and religion). Also, some of the GoSL-supporting parties are Buddhist-chauvinist, etc. And the Christian Science Monitor piece raises a perfectly relevant question from a US “realist” (as opposed to humanitarian) perspective–i.e., are these displaced and victimized Muslims ripe for the picking by international Islamic extremist groups? If they are, that is quite a relevant fact/concern–keep in mind, for example, that if it happens, it is going to become a lot more difficult to travel internationally on a Sri Lankan passport (whatever we think of the rightness or wrongness of that fact).
food pr0n alert. My favorite breakfast, appam with sunny side egg and coconut milk.
Rob,
Egg hoppers w00t indeed.
I didn’t do an intense dissection of the CSM story in my post, but its evidence for saying Sri Lankan Muslims seems not very solid. If it were solid, there would not be a question mark in that headline.
Three quotes to illustrate my point:
<
p>Observers? Reads hedgily to me.
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p>The latter two quotes are in the first part of the story! And even the first subhead ends in a question mark. They aren’t making a statement. Since when does such a large IF merit that much space in a prestigious publication? Better to make the headline: “Displaced Sri Lankan Muslims still in camps years after expulsion” or something to that effect. The problem isn’t that they’re ripe for fundamentalism. The problem is that they’ve been booted from their homes. A humanitarian problem!
I agree with you that religion is certainly a PART of the conflict that can’t be ignored. Buddhist monks, for example, are very politically active in Sri Lanka. Still, portraying it as a purely religious conflict is beyond reductive; it’s inaccurate. And in the case of the restaurant review, the introduction of religion is gratuitious.
I’m with you on that–those are two solid points!
Okay, I know reviewers sometimes struggle to find things to write about, but I’ve never once thought of a sizzling platter as hate-worthy.
Is this a common complaint? Do people really hate sizzling platters?
And also, since when is pork on the menu a cue for Buddhism? Are Sri Lankan Buddhists big on eating pork?
I thought Buddhism espoused vegetarianism via ahimsa, but what do I know? Plenty of Chinese Buddhists love pork.
You know, I really pride myself about being, in Desi circles, an anti-PC Republican, but this guy (Robert Sietsema) is really too much, even for me–“Faith-Based Curry” as his title? WTF??!! Is this some sort of crude nepotism? (Tom Sietsema is the restaurant reviewer for the Washington Post–hmmm….). I’ll write a letter demanding his resignation if you do!
Black pork curry is a well-known Sinhalese dish, yes. And there are plenty of versions of both Buddhism and Hinduism… including meat-eating ones!
What a lazy article! Sri Lankan Muslims (some of whom are also known as Moors) are Sri Lankans first. In Sri Lanka there are Tamizh Muslims, Sinhala Muslims (very close to the Divehi speakers of Maldives) and Gujarati Bohra Muslims. Which Muslims is the author talking of?
Dalrymple’s passing reference in the NYT to the “Sri Lankan Hindu extremists†who killed Rajiv Gandhi.
that’s as tarded as saying that black september was an islamic terrorist group.
n Sri Lanka there are Tamizh Muslims, Sinhala Muslims (very close to the Divehi speakers of Maldives) and Gujarati Bohra Muslims.
do you have numbers on the breakdown? my family socialized with sri lankan muslims and encountered them at mosques and all of them were from tamil-speaking backgrounds (though they did not necessarily identify as tamils). they made it clear that sri lankan muslims were overwhelmingly speakers of tamil.
I thought Buddhism espoused vegetarianism via ahimsa, but what do I know? Plenty of Chinese Buddhists love pork.
the chinese are buddhist in a relatively syncretistic manner though. the tibetans though no one would doubt are buddhist in a more singular manner (though bon-po is still popular), and i believe that salted chicken is one of their traditional dishes. i know that in some southeast asian countries monks will eat meat, but they will never slaughter the animals themselves….
Well, as much or as little as the Burghers are seen as Sri Lankans first. The Muslims came from abroad, lived on the coast, and dominated the international trade (shall we say colonialism??!!) before the Portuguese showed up and displaced them–so, if you’re putting a racial light on things the Mulsims are Sri Lankan, but if you’re putting an economic history light on things, no more than the European colonists.
rob, the sri lankan muslims that my family knew were professionals, so caveat…but their internationalism was pretty notable. several of them raised their children knowing only english, totally ignorant of tamil. my parents were a little surprised by this but they explained that they identified as muslims and not as tamils. these weren’t extremely religious types at all, but there was a noticeable islamic cosmopolitanism to them.
…drool…
Yes, yes–this is my view as well. My point is that, unfortunately, this cosmopolitanism of the Sri Lankan Muslims has led to serious problems for them on the island as things have degraded to a Tamil-Sinhalese ethnic shoot-out, which has left the Muslims in many cases to be out in the cold. I don’t personally have any Sinhalese friends, and I have a lot of Sri-Lankan Tamil close friends, but obviously the tragedy of the violence is not limited to the Muslims (or the Tamils, or the Sinhalese) on the island.
People might be interested in reading this.
That is a really interesting-looking piece–thanks for the link and I will read it carefully in the next couple of days–I do hate the lading up of good analysis with silly PC throw-aways like “Communalisation began in the British period”–yeah, b/c none of the Tamils resented the Muslims locking-up of trade from Taprobane to other countries! (or the Dutch or Portuguese)” It was paradise before the Portuguese showed up. Vomit! Could we stop with the patronisation?! Please Muslim traders, may I have some more??!!
Okay, I know reviewers sometimes struggle to find things to write about, but I’ve never once thought of a sizzling platter as hate-worthy.
Is this a common complaint? Do people really hate sizzling platters?
it is actually, and a fairly common one. the platter, after arriving at your table, cools down and yet continues to transfer its feeble heat to the items placed on it, creating an unappealing slop of wilted vegetables and dry gray meat. that he even bothered to mention to readers that he hates it is surprising, given that it is compulsory testimony among gastronomes that sizzling platters belong in strip mall Chili’s, and one of the privileges of living in manhattan is to not encounter them or people who enjoy them
Great point about the LTTE being secular but I would even go as far as to characterize them as being downright hostile to some aspects of Jaffna Tamil Hinduism. I think that there is a dimension to the conflict that is often overlooked and that’s the class/caste struggle within Tamils. Prabakharan belongs to one of the lowest castes in the Jaffna Tamil caste hierarchy. The lower castes in Jaffna have for long been dominated by upper caste Vellalars and part of the conflict involves usurping the Vellalar hegemony. Lower caste Tamils as well as Christians feature quite prominently in the LTTE hierarchy. Incidentally the female suicide bomber who killed Rajiv was Christian. This topic is a lot more complicated and I can’t possibly do it justice here but referring to the LTTE as “Hindu extremists” is quite the opposite of the reality of the matter.
I thought they were the Moops.
Completely off-topic, but the author’s name, Sietsema, is a very typical Frisian Dutch name. I wonder if he is an nth generation immigrant or an actual Dutchman.
While I don’t have anything to say about general trends of exoticizing the Sri Lankan conflict by bringing religion into the equation, I did snicker at this comment.
23 · Rahul said
I would like to say the the Phrase Moors was only relevant for Muslims who were from Moorish Spain, but these days that is a racial terminology for darker skinned people esp muslims of certain areas of spain and what Portugal. so I guess the Portugese who went over ended up calling the Muslims Moors.
This is interesting. I have read other reports that claim Prabakaran is a vellala. Looks like he is a religious Hindu / Christian Baptist / upper caste / lower caste / .. etc all at the same time. 🙂
The writer of the “food” section (I believe) wanted to start off with some eye-catchy title and ended up with this one. It is a good idea to attach anything religious to describe people from remote places (esp. indian subcontinent). It fits the stereotype. It is ridiculous to call this “Faith based curry”, Almost all the restaurants and chains carry pork / beef / vegetarian dishes. Does that mean they offer “faith based food”?. Moreover what has pork got to do with Buddhism??.
Nice to see the photo. I should try the “egg aappam”. I have never seen it in Chennai, I think. Aappam = hopper, Idiappam = string hopper, kottu roti = kottu parotta ??.. cool.
Oh man, that restaurant review makes me want to cry. It’s interesting — I’ve noticed this myself before — that food writing remains one of the last bastions of the essentialist exoticising that is frowned upon in most other genres. I wonder why that is.
BTW that black pork curry sounds (at least from the name of it) suspiciously like a popular Balinese dish. Could be pure coincidence, of course, but I wonder…. I think the Balinese one is black from soy sauce, but there is also a Filipino one that is black from blood, I think. If anyone reading this knows better, please correct me — I’m no expert on Balinese or Filipino cuisine!
The reviewer is an idiot. How you make food religious is beyond meh. But what else is beyond me is how the Sri Lankan Buddhist clergy justifies war. So in the same way the Sri Lankan clergy can justify killing people for whatever reason, a reviewer can make a visit to a restaurant religious.
i completely agree. Just sent a letter to the editor echoing your points (albeit less eloquently, i’m sure!) and included a link to this post. (there’s a “write to the editor” link above the article on the Village Voice site – much easier than registering just to leave a comment.)
Also – Sigiri serves excellent food, why have they brushed its existence off and brought Nirvana in “as a sign from the deity”? What ridiculous language. Aside from the gratuitousness, it doesn’t even make sense – which deity?! Ridiculous.
27 · Ponniyin Selvan said
No, as it turns out. That’s what I thought too until I had one for the first time in Toronto last weekend. Just a reg’lar roti, kottufied. While wonderful, I still prefer the kottu parota.
K doesn’t mind her full name being used, so here it is: formal thanks to Kishani Seneviratne for sending me the restaurant review in the first place.
Anjum,
I wholeheartedly agree with you on Sigiri, it is my favorite restaurant in Manhattan, their Sunday buffet is amazing and NY area mutineers who haven’t tried it should give it a shot.
Exploring the nexus between food and religious conflict seems to be Robert Sistema’s stock-in-trade:
Here he is on chowhound (link) recommending a Malaysian restaurant in NYC, which he calls “militantly Muslim.”
Here he is in the Village Voice (link) marveling that immigrant Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians all happily commingle in cafes in Astoria.
And again in the Village Voice (link) reviewing Minar, a Manhattan Indian restaurant: “Because the meat and poultry are not halal, Minar is cut off from much of its potential cabbie constituency (though the restaurateurs have installed Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim iconography to make everyone feel welcome). Instead, it encourages the patronage of South Indian vegetarians by offering iddly, uthappam, and masala dosa.”
Yeah, I know–try parsing the ramifications of all that . . .
As I read more of his work, it’s obvious that he loves to ramp up the exoticism of his dining experiences and ponder the deep significance of History and Culture while he slurps his soup.
Alongside the mostly inaccurate gastro-Orientalist references that one might hear from a dinner party guest who was entirely unfamiliar with the food but still wished to appear intelligent–always missing the point that the food is there to be eaten and enjoyed (and written about–but with care). I’ve written in to the Village Voice before, complaining about simple factual inaccuracies in his coverage of southie restaurants–but since Sietsema’s mostly like Pitchfork for foodies, I’m not so bothered by it after all.
After reading a particular line of his, where he referred to thosai as “crepe-inspired,” i had a violent reaction, reached out to the Voice in my best Dipesh Chakrabarty imitation and wondered how this gastro-hack could have divined that french chefs traveled to India in 50 BC and showed the darkies how make crepes (because the darkies still couldn’t quite yet touch forefinger to thumb).
he’s in the negative. for life.
Eggs are not Vedic. What is this?
I live on Victory Blvd, and frequent the Staten Island Sri Lankan restaurants often (I live only a few blocks away). My family has gotten pretty close to the owners of one particular place. I’ve also gotten many of my non-desi friends hooked.
The exoticization in this article is typical and annoying. The writer seems to regard the Sri Lankan cuisines as a mysterious frontier not yet explored by the normative, cosmopolitan appreciater of “ethnic” food, hence the outlandish references to space and legends. Thankfully, this brave culinary explorer is here to dive headfirst into this other world and return with an explanation of all this, so we can know which of these dishes are “totally dope” and worthy of our multicultural palates! Some may call me extreme, but I always feel there is a trace of the colonialist/European explorer pattern within articles like this one.
BTW, the mosque that supposedly anchors the two Sri Lankan temples in Staten Island was built by and services only the Albanian Muslim community, and isn’t located particularly close to the Sri Lankan restaurants by any stretch…This is more sensationalism on the part of the writer, and another random religion reference.
Looks like the religion talk got to me! I wrote “the mosque that supposedly anchors the two Sri Lankan temples” instead of restaurants! Shame on me!
I have only two things to say:
1) the word “hopper” jolts me every time. Apparently “string hoppers” are my fave breakfast.
2) after reading this post, I am tempted to start a fan-girl group on the Facebook in honor of the Sugi.
🙂
Sadly, by writing this review he has probably ruined the allure of visiting the restaurant.
Who ever said it was a Vedic diet?
Besides, in the real vedic age, people probably did eat eggs and meat.
Yes! I didn’t realise you were such a foodie Sugi, I feel completely guilty for not taking you guys out for Chilli Crab, Nasi Lemak, Otah or the wicked Mee Poh stall just outside my bro’s apartment!
Next time (and am I hope there’ll be one), we organise around lunch not coffee.
Which came first: the veda or the egg?
I didn’t realize I was such a foodie! As usual, writing is revealing. I do also enjoy the media criticism 🙂
Lunch, definitely…. and A N N A, thank you!
Does anyone know where to get Sri Lankan food in LA? (Parus is wonderful for Tamilian)?
Greedily waiting (hoping) for an answer…
Muslims in Sri Lanka do not regard themselves as Tamils. Tamil chauvinists however, continue time and time againt to claim them as “Tamils” to bolster their nationalistic claims. Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world where “Muslim” is regarded as an ethnic and religious group – but not officially. There are several ethnic groups in Sri Lanka – the Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors, Burghers and Malays (others are Sindhis, Afghans, Malayalis etc). The Moors are divided into the Indian/Pakistani Moors of relatively recent origin and the Ceylon Moors who have a long history in the island. Almost all Moors are Muslim. Almost all Malays are also Muslim. So the term Muslim covers both the Moor and Malay ethnic groups. Most Moors speak Tamil whilst most Malays speak Malay/Sinhalese. Some Malays are unhappy with the usage of the term Muslim as an ethnic grouping because they feel that their identity is being submerged by the Moors. Unlike the Sinhalese or Tamils who tend to be monolingual, Muslims are often bilingual (Sinhalese, Tamil) or trilingual (Sinhalese, Tamil, English) which is probably something the other ethnic groups should take as an example.
27 · Ponniyin Selvan said
That Prabhakaran was born on the coast in Velvettithurai to a fisherman community (Kariayar caste) is considered common knowledge among Jaffna Tamils. To my knowledge he has never attempted to portray himself as being otherwise.
Ok. Thanks. I have read many reports speculating his caste / religion and assigning him different labels.
You can become bilingual or even trilingual…but you still have your own, singular mother-tongue. And many/most people will/should want to remain loyal to that. Which is a good thing.