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Frikkadels and lamprais: The best of Burgher cooking
By Thiruni Kelegama
A tempting smell of food was definitely in the air as I entered the home of the official lamprais makers for the "Burgher Cuisine Fair" held last month. Greeted warmly at the door and warned beforehand that the house was in a mess, I proceeded to the kitchen from where these delectable smells came.

The real thing: Fast sales at the fair. Pic by J. Weerasekara

"We are making the lamprais and the breudher for the fair," said these experts in Dutch-Burgher cuisine. And the table was indeed laid out with massive amounts of breudher.

"The lamprais made in Sri Lanka is not the real thing. Most of the time an egg is added and a piece of chicken is placed on the top to make the meal look more inviting. That is not what should be in a lamprais."

"Lomprijst" or lamprais which is the anglicized version, has to be made in chicken stock. A muslin bag containing all the spices has to be dropped into the rice. This gives the rice its rich flavour. It was originally made in beef stock, but it was changed as many people have stopped eating beef now," the expert tells me.

The curries which are included in a lamprais are "frikkadels", "brinjal pahie", "chilli sambol", "prawn blachang", and "lamprais curry".

"A large amount of sugar is used for all these preparations. All the meat that is used in the lamprais has to be diced. A 'piece' of chicken should never be used."

Frikkadels or "forced meat" are small cutlets made of beef. Two of them are put on top of the lamprais which is placed on the plantain leaf. The prawn blachang is flattened into a circle and placed on top alongside the brinjal pahie and the chilli sambol. The lamprais curry is placed last - "It has five kinds of meat in it. Beef, chicken, pork, mutton, and ox liver. All diced," I was told. Finally, it is carefully wrapped and baked for one hour so that the flavour of the plantain leaf seeps into the rice. "This is the ideal lamprais."

On the other side of the kitchen, the dough for more breudher was being mixed.

"We have been making these for a long time. It would be proper to say that we grew up with them. Breudher and lamprais have always been part of Dutch cooking but not everyone can make it property ...." On July 27, the Dutch Burger Union Hall was already full before 10:00 a.m. when the fair was supposed to start. Mavis Kerkoven, who had made the Fogguetti revealed the secret behind its delicious task. "The pastry is made and wrapped around a bamboo shoot. It is then filled with a specially prepared mixture of pumpkin preserve and cadjunuts. A large amount of rose water and a dash of cinammon goes into this. The pastry is finally coated with crystallized sugar." This is part of her heritage. "Unfortunately very few people can make it now."

Asparagus sandwiches was the highlight of the next table, which also consisted of beef and fish patties, kokis and ijzer kokis. Jackie Anthonis, who is one of very few people who can make asparagus sandwiches said that a large quantity of cheese and butter goes into it. "It has to be rolled. Otherwise it is NOT an asparagus sandwich!" she added.

Milk Wine and the homemade ginger beer which had raisins floating on it were the highlights of the sale. Not easy to make, they did not go unappreciated. "This is the second sale of this nature we have organized. The last one was held in April and it was a massive success. Next year, we hope to have an even bigger one," said the President of the Dutch Burgher Union, Ms. Deloraine Brohier.

"A lot of hotels have their own recipes for most of these foods. But what they make is unfortunately a bastardized version of the original recipes," she added. "They should endeavour to learn without assuming that they know." The beauty of Dutch Burgher cooking lies in the fact that it was always for the family. The lamprais was a family dish though now it is found only in hotels and restaurants. Breudher was a tea-time treat. The sad reality is that these traditions are fast dying.

Picture stories
By Ruwanthi Herat Gunaratne
A written word however eloquent can sometimes fail to project the message. A story seems quite incomplete without the benefit of a picture. Press photographs carry a lot of weight. They form the basis of many a story.

This was all too evident at the World Press Photo Exhibition, which is being held at the Barefoot Gallery until August 23. World Press Photo's main aim is to support and promote internationally the work of professional press photographers.

Each year the Board of the World Press Photo foundation invites press photographers throughout the world to participate in the World Press Photo contest. The prize-winning photographs appear in the yearbook and are exhibited under the auspices of the foundation. This year alone nearly 50,000 photographs were submitted by over 4000 photographers from 123 countries.

"Photographers are not given the merit they deserve, especially in countries such as ours," says Dr. Shahidul Alam, of the Drik Picture Library Limited, Bangaladesh, and a former jury member of the World Press Photo contest. "It is not an esteemed profession like that of the west."

This may have contributed to the fact that there was not a single Sri Lankan photographer's work exhibited. "The lack of professionalism has resulted in this," continued Dr. Alam, "There should be more opportunities for this to be achieved."

The exhibition itself was a fantastic recap of what the world went through during the last year. The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan take centre stage. But it's not only the bleak and unfortunate events that are highlighted. Picture stories on the advancement of science and sports events also play a big role thanks to the fact that there are many categories one can enter.

The photographs exhibited are descriptive. They each relate their own story. The suffering in Afghanistan evokes pity whilst photographs on the September 11th attacks rouse anger. Startlingly beautiful are the photographs that reflect advancements in the field of science and technology.

A photograph by Erik Refner of Berlingske Tidende, Denmark of the preparation for burial of a body of a one-year-old Afghan boy who died of dehydration was adjudged Photo of the Year quite justly.

Amongst the science photographs were that of an electronically stimulated hand by John Costello of The Philadelphia Inquirer, USA. "The still picture is evocative," adds Dr. Alam, "moving pictures might be all the rage but there's nothing like a photograph that can hold your gaze captive. It can make you think."

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