Dhammacarini vege-fair: A Gourmet's Wonderland

Samaneri SUVIMALEE

VEGE-FAIR: I remember attending a dinner party hosted by a friend more than two decades ago. The invitation was for a night with Robert Knox and the wording was in 'ye olde English'. It was quaint, original and memorable.

When we were ushered into the dining room and welcomed to help ourselves from the buffet table, I realised why the guests had been invited to dine with Knox. The dishes were all indigenous. There were no concessions made to urbane taste buds.

The table groaned under the weight of polos, kos, vegetable curries, rice, yams thrown in for good measure, herbs and, no doubt, some river fish and fowl curry. All what Knox would have enjoyed with 'Kandyan Hospitality', perhaps, which latter, however, was not available at my friend's house.

By the way, Knox did not have the unique experience of having been kept in Rajasinghe II's miniature zoo of exotic animals at the entrance garden of his palace, to be viewed with curiosity by the Kandyan peasantry. It has been reported that a prize exhibit in that zoo was a 'white' man, languishing in a cage.

Dhammacarini's vege-fair has no such zoological attractions, vegetarianism being based on 'avihimsa' non-violence to all creatures including homo sapiens. While healthy food uncontaminated by pesticides, insecticides, additives and preservatives are very rare to come by, I don't think the invitation is for a return to primitive yams, roots, herbs and the like.

It has an overt agenda of popularising saner food habits than grilled lamb chops, puff pastry chicken pies, yummy but cholesterol causing rich desserts such as chocolate baskets filled with cheese cake topped with strawberries smothered in whipped cream.

About three years ago, I attended a dinner hosted by another very dynamic friend. The curries were all delicious herbs and the drinks were cool herbal beverages distilled to fastidious perfection, the colour of champaign and pale lemon, proffered in elegant Czechoslovakian glass goblets. (Alas, our ancestors were not manufacturers of glassware).

Let me recall one more anecdote, how the Dhammacarinis arrived in the remote village of Kalavila where another Buddhist nun and I were spending our Rain Retreat last year. The Dhammacarinis had come to conduct a five- day in-house training programme for pre-school teacher-trainees in the district.

They made a request that the menu for the twenty Seven pre-school teacher trainees and themselves, the resource persons, be entirely vegetarian food grown in the area. They also wanted Rasa Kevili (sweetmeat) for afternoon tea, not cakes or bread or biscuits, even those manufactured in Sri Lanka. Only rice flour goodies were to be tolerated.

So, your's truly 'went to town' metaphorically speaking, trying to obtain local decor material in keeping with the local vegetarian theme. Accordingly, all the thoroughly indigenous food was served in Sri Lankan 'athilies' and served with coconut shell ladles.

No white damask cloth graced the buffet table, that role being given over to rush mats. Mercifully, a few indigenous items were still available in Kalavila though shops in a nearby town were crammed with cheap, glitzy imported items.

Nowhere were the local items plentiful like the collections we find in city handcraft emporiums. I must say the senior bhikkhuni keeping a stern eye on the budget and the pained expression on the face of our Rain Retreat Manager somewhat restrained your's truly from overdoing the local decor part, assiduously hunting for indigenous material in the wilds of Kalavila.

The rasa kevili for tea consisted of lavariya, aggala, naran kevun, kevun, halape and other 'labour intensive' sweetmeats.

The order for them was welcomed by the village caterer of such items. Only, at the end of the five days training programme she was found to have passed out in her lean-to wattle and daub kitchen with its thatched roof.

The pre-school teacher trainees were beside themselves with praise for the in-house training programme and the return to healthy indigenous food.

Many a tear was shed at the end of the five days and the question asked again and again from the organisers "Madam, when is the next course? Where will it be? Can we attend that also?"

I cannot tell you what the Dhammacarini Vege-fair at the ACWBA hall, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, on Sunday June 25, 2006 from 10 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. is going to be like. If my guess is correct, it will be a grand, elegant success.

I was told there would be Indian, International and Sri Lankan dishes. The highlights will be a brunch buffet, demonstrations of fruit and vegetable carving, cookery demonstration including desserts, a very special Sri Lankan sweet stall, bottled specialities like lotus yams and rare herbs, etc.

So, there will be a mouth watering variety to suit every kind of palate, the accent being on the 'International' to suit the urbane taste buds of the cosmopolitan Colombo set.

By the way, British propaganda in the 19th century had it that Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe was a gourmet par excellence. It was said that he enjoyed his meals so much that after each meal he had to be carried out on a stretcher. We hope there won't be such sights at the Dhammacarini vege-fair.