Rambutan: Recipes from Sri Lanka

I am a big fan of Asian food in general, and especially curries--so jumped at the chance to read/review this one. It was a fascinating read and jumpstart into Sri Lanka and its history, whether culinary or otherwise--not to mention how it differs from its close neighbor, India.

Americans will need to to a bit of "translation," both from metric to imperial and Celsius to Fahrenheit--the latter an odd omission, given that the book includes Celsius, fan Celsius, and gas already (what's one more, at that point?). However, much of the ingredients list is just a matter of tablespoons/teaspoons (though I could also go into how even those differ from country to country, LOL, but I won't).

There is a bit of language, at times, and some of the show more stories are more "interestingly" casual--but many are literally LOL-funny, too. It's a unique mix. I did enjoy the author's sense of humor, and got a good chuckle out of her dry wit.

I can't say I'm in a huge rush to try _many_ recipes, simply due to their time-consuming nature, but I will say the book is a mother lode for Sri Lankan cooking, with beautiful photography (of both dishes and locations). It's got a lot going for it, with just a couple hiccups.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. show less

I'm not very practiced in reviewing cookbooks, but this one is absolutely stunning, first of all, and is also just packed full of recipes that sounds amazing and delicious. The only problem—and this might just be a problem for me and/or where I live—is that most of the recipes demand fresh curry leaves, and absolutely insist upon the leaves being fresh. So this cookbook falls into the category of being one whose ingredients are harder to find. But also I'm very curious to know what actual fresh curry leaves taste like, so maybe someday I'll find myself looking for this book again.

All of the information about Sri Lanka and its history, while painful to read at times, is invaluable—especially the author's inclusion of all of the show more different minority groups. I also greatly appreciate that she includes the island's LGBT population.

The pictures are gorgeous, even if their editing gives them a somewhat dated look and I wish they had captions. But what I can say for sure is that the cover has to be one of the most stunning cookbook covers I've ever seen. It's what drew me to it in the first place.

I'll come back to this one … show less