An Anthropological Study on the Use of Natural Flavoring Agents in Sri Lankan Traditional Food Culture
Abstract
There is no universal definition for the term ‘flavorings’. Yet, spices, herbs, condiments, and seasonings altogether are known as natural flavoring agents, including coloring sources, tart flavorings, preservative spices, aromatic flavorings, and appetizers. In this study, main objective was to identify culinary spices, herbs, condiments, and seasonings that are being used, and their form of usage. This study covered purposively selected 100 Divisions out of 256 Divisions to represent selected Divisional Secretariats. Each 25-household was selected from Divisional Secretariats via snowball sampling method representing 100 D.S. Divisions. The required data were collected from 2500 households through semi-structured interviews. Identified Sri Lankan natural food flavoring agents are divided into three main categories based on their sources: plant-based, animal-based, and mineral-based. 61 natural flavoring agents were identified in this study and this constitutes the highest number of natural flavoring agents used in Sri Lanka. Majority of the identified flavoring agents belonged to the plant-based 55(N) (90%) category. Mineral-based 3(N) (5%) and animal-based 3(N) (5%) natural flavoring agents were identified during this study. In addition, spices 23(N) (38%), herbs 17(N) (28%), seasonings 12(N) (19%), and condiments 9(N) (15%) were also identified in this study. Considerably, flavoring mixtures (thunapaha) play a notable role in Sri Lankan traditional cuisine. Similarly, ‘Thuna’ is one mixture made out of three ingredients (cumin, fennel and coriander) and‘Paha’ is another mixture made out of five lumps (pepper, garcinia, mustard, turmeric and chili). Today, people have limited the use of flavoring agents because of the lack of traditional knowledge and the disappearance of the traditional practices related to cooking from modernized societies.
