Islands of adventure
Selina Periampillai on her Mauritian heritage, slowing down in the kitchen, and bat curry. LAUREN TAYLOR reports...
THINK of Mauritius, the Maldives and Seychelles, and chances are you imagine white sandy beaches, tropical heat and honeymooning couples. And you’d be right – but what about the food?
“People don’t really know much about that part of the world,” says Selina Periampillai – yet the incredible multiculturalism of this pocket of the Indian Ocean has created a unique cuisine made up of seemingly disparate culinary influences and styles that work in mysterious harmony.
Born and raised in Croydon, South London, Selina calls Mauritius her second home – her parents are from there and moved to the UK in the Seventies for work – but as a child, she spent long summers every year back on the island.
“I remember my nan cooking outside, she had a massive rock slab and used to crush spices on it with a cylinder tool – fresh spices, garlic, chilli – she would roll it and crush them every morning and cook with them that evening,” says the 37-yearold.
So how did Mauritian cuisine come to be what it is today? “It was colonised by the Dutch, then the British came, and Chinese came over, all these people from
all different cultures settled on the island,” says Selina. Throw Indian, French and African influences into the mix and it’s considered one of the great Creole cuisines of the world.
“We’ve ended up with biryani and curry from India and fiery hot, chilli chutneys. The Chinese set up as merchants near Port Louis [the capital] and they’re still selling dumplings on street corners, you’ll find dumpling soup and noodles in Mauritian restaurants too.”
It surprises first-timer diners, she says; it’s lighter and more fragrant than people anticipate. “People expect an Indian-style curry but we might use cinnamon to make it sweet or thyme leaves and parsley.”
In her first cookbook, The Island Kitchen, Selina takes you on journey, not only around the fascinatingly diverse Mauritian cuisine – think fish biryani, slow-cooked duck with cinnamon and cloves, and potato and pea samosas – but Madagascar, Maldives, Seychelles, and the lesser known Reunion, Comoros and Mayotte, and Rodrigues.
Reunion – where threequarters of the population is said to be of mixed origin – is a seafood lover’s paradise. A speciality on the tiny volcanic Rodrigues island is a thickcrusted coconut and papaya pie.
A French horticulturalist and botanist once smuggled plants into the Seychelles that are still a huge part of the cuisine today.
You might not want to eat bat curry (“A bit like chicken, quite bony but really nice”) or shark chutney (“Tangy with a squeeze of lime”), but Selina has drawn the line at including those recipes in the book anyway.
What’s most surprising though, is that the classic dishes of these islands, and Selina’s take on them (like the pineapple upside-down cake her supper clubgoers rave about), are all pretty simple. It’s stews you chuck everything into and leave, curry that doesn’t take hours, and vibrant salads with sweet notes of coconut, lime or mango. “I’m all for really down-to-earth, nothing fancy, really good comfort food,” she says.
“All the family would get together for dinner and it would never be one of two dishes, the table would be full every night, bowls of curry, fresh chapatis, and lots of pickles and chutneys – the condiments of Mauritius,” Selina adds.
That’s the thing about this kind of food; it’s generous, comforting and laid-back. “It’s about enjoying the moment and taking that time out. They take it a bit slower, especially with cooking – no stress, enjoy yourself, enjoy the whole process and enjoy the food.”
The Island Kitchen: Recipes From Mauritius And The Indian Ocean by Selina Periampillai is published by Bloomsbury, £26.