Jaffna Crab-Curry Trail

Chase the fiery crab curries and palmyra sweets of the Tamil north, market to home kitchen.

What the Jaffna Crab-Curry Trail is really like.

Northern Tamil cooking is its own world, hotter and more sour than the south, built on roasted-spice curry powders and the lagoon's heavy lagoon crab. This food trail walks you through a busy Jaffna market, then into a home kitchen to cook the famous Jaffna crab curry from scratch. Along the way you meet palmyra in every guise, from odiyal flour to sweet toddy-palm treacle. A guide who grew up on this cuisine reads the flavours and the history for you.

At a glance

Best season: May – September
Typical duration: Half day
Region: 1

Moment by moment

How the day unfolds.

Step 01
Through the market
Walk the crowded stalls for live crab, dried fish, palmyra flour and the dark roasted spice blends the north is known for.
Step 02
The crab curry
Cook the celebrated Jaffna crab curry in a home kitchen, the gravy fierce with chilli, pepper and roasted spice.
Step 03
Sour and spiced
Learn how tamarind, lime and goraka pull the heat into balance, the sour-spicy signature of northern cooking.
Step 04
Palmyra sweets
Taste odiyal kool and treacle drawn from the toddy palm, the tree that feeds the whole peninsula.
Step 05
Eat by hand
Sit down to the spread you helped cook, eaten the local way off a banana leaf with your fingers.