Guess who came for rice and curry?
Watching every step: Marco Pierre White observing the process of extracting the gum from naanu leaves to make aasmi. Pix by M.D. Nissanka
Marco Pierre White is so charming and chatty that I almost wonder if it’s another Marco we see on television.
Then we start talking about elaborate tasting menus (you know, those 20 course affairs with tiny little portions) and he narrows his eyes, enunciating “I like real food. Why would I want 20 canapes? I crave the ordinary.” Aha, this sounds familiar.
Craving the ordinary is a desire White has expressed in many situations, from the most unordinary-like edifices of the Masterchef Australia kitchens, where he terrifies hopefuls once or twice every season, to talking about his restaurants in the UK. If craving the ordinary seems like an unusual wish for the British chef and restaurateur, it is.
He revolutionised contemporary British cuisine, amassed droves to his restaurant as a famously volatile young chef, penned culinary classic ‘White Heat’ and became the youngest British chef ever to be awarded three Michelin stars – perhaps the most renowned accolade a chef could be awarded – at the age of 33.
Marco Pierre White isn’t ordinary by any stretch of the imagination. Yet sitting on a rickety wooden bench in the village of Hiriwaduna, nibbling on his halape and sipping contemplatively on beli mal thé, White actually manages to pass for someone very much in tune with the ordinary.
He has graciously invited me to perch next to him, having taken off those famous spectacles that he usually peers over from (later laughing that these spectacles “make tiny portions look bigger, that’s why I wear them”).
We’ve just watched White spend three hours keenly observing four village cooks going about their work as they prepared aasmi, konda kevum and kokis for him.
They’ve also shown him how to prepare an okra curry, fry freshwater fish, scrape coconut and pound rice into fine flour. He seems utterly fascinated by the entire process, brusquely telling those who call him on a tiny temporary mobile that he’ll call back later, he’s at a demonstration.
The local way: Enjoying rice and curry with his fingers
A culinary hopeful would have been extremely nervous having Marco peer down their shoulder like that as they cooked, but these ladies take it in their stead.
Do they know who it is? “Not really,” smiles Chandrawathie Menike. “But he’s very nice.”
When served his lunch, White confidently brings the dish closer to his mouth so he can gently push a portion of rice and curry in with his fingers. “Did I do it terribly badly?” he asks.
When reassured that actually, he did it surprisingly well for a first-timer, he says, “Well I’ll tell you one thing. It’s impossible to drip food down yourself when you eat like that.”
White waxes lyrical about what he has just seen when we sit down for our chat. “I have just one thing to say- wow, can those ladies cook!”
He describes the meal he has just had as “one of the greatest meals I’ve ever had.” Following lunch he observed the making of aasmi for almost an hour, keenly watching the cook coax gum from the naanu leaves to form the base for the mixture; “that’s rather gummy, isn’t it?” he says somewhat worriedly to his companion, Executive Chef Sunanda Kumar from Cinnamon Lodge Habarana.
Later, however, he crunches into one quite happily after demanding to know why only his portion didn’t have the sweet syrup coating on both sides.
The cooks who prepared his meal for him are described with the highest esteem to us. “It was so fascinating to watch these ladies because even without any training or any equipment they knew what they were doing.
The simplicity of it is so fascinating. Their understanding comes through with the flavour.”
Is this a learning trip for him, then? Every trip is a learning experience, he corrects gently. “You always have to seek inspiration.
Watching these ladies cook just by their sense of touch and smell and taste with no real measurements-they’re so clever, to make something so delicious with such simplicity.”
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity is his popular refrain on Masterchef Australia, a show on which he is a regular mentor, judge and stern taskmaster.
White has the kind of personality that demands attention, even when he is silently glowering at a contestant because they didn’t follow his advice to scale back on a dish.
It’s the attitude he famously brought to his London restaurants, where he once reportedly made a young Gordon Ramsay cry while on duty. White has also had celebrity chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, Thiery Bussett and Shannon Bennett work for him.
These days, of course, he is much more laid back. In 1999 he returned his three Michelin stars to focus on family and to reinvent himself.
Marco then went on to open MPW Steak & Alehouse and Kings Road Steakhouse & Grill-which he set up with co-owner James Robertson in 2008 and 2010- lauded for their cuisine and determinedly unpretentious atmosphere.
Travel is on his itinerary quite a bit but Sri Lanka, he says winningly, is “without question the most beautiful country I’ve ever visited.”
As part of the Cinnamon experience Marco has already visited Tea Trails and Sigiriya when we meet. Sigiriya in particular he is fascinated by. “It goes to show,” he says gravely “that fear can be the catalyst to making your imagination work.”
What will he take back with him? He hasn’t yet decided (also, unsure about whether Customs will let him) but says he has learnt much just from his keen observation of the Hiriwaduna demonstration.
When they fried a piece of freshwater fish for him he crunched into it, later noting that he doesn’t usually like freshwater fish but “that was sensational.”
I’m asked what the fat content of “that delicious, delicious (king) coconut water” is- not the first clue, we say, but why question these things?
Over the next few days (he’s here till January 30) Marco will be a busy man. He’s scheduled to host two curated dinners, a Masterclass and several meet and greets arranged by Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts together with the British High Commission, the two organisers, along with SriLankan Airlines that flew him down, responsible for his presence here.
He’s keen to schedule in as much “authenticity” as he can into the visit. “I don’t care about the fluff of life. I want simplicity and authenticity. I get that here.”