Meet Shayama
For Shayama, spice is life.
When she cooks with the spices she remembers from her childhood in Sri Lanka – coriander seed, cumin seed, cinnamon, cardamom, lemongrass, pandan leaves, and, of course, whole red chillies for heat – she is returned to a younger version of herself.
“I remember my mother’s food,” she says. “My mum and aunties never bought the curry powder spices. They would make everything by hand in the mortar and pestle each day, from scratch. Now, I make my own curry powder too, because it brings memories. The smell is so beautiful.”
As a child in Galle, in the country’s south, Shayama remembers going to the market with her mother and aunties, holding hands so as to not get lost in the swirl of people, colours and scents. Fruits, vegetables and spices would be piled high in stacks. Pineapples would be laid out on the ground and bananas would hang from hooks while the vendors shouted out their daily bargains. The roads were lined with street food carts, the heady aromas of the fried foods filling the air.
After arriving home with their market haul, Shayama’s mother and aunties would cook abundant volumes of food in clay pots over a wooden charcoal oven to feed their entire extended family, and whoever else came through the door. Shayama, her siblings and their cousins, about 10 children all up, would sit on the floor in the living room eating sago – a “cooling and healing” coconut milk pudding infused with spices and sugar – for breakfast, served with bread.
“My mum and aunties never bought the curry powder spices. They would make everything by hand in the mortar and pestle each day, from scratch. Now, I make my own curry powder too, because it brings memories. The smell is so beautiful.”
This is how Shayama remembers her house: people always around, eating together, full of food, fun, family and friends. Full of happiness. “We always like sharing and giving,” she says. “Family is very important. You have to look after each other. You have to look after everyone.”
This thread of generosity is something Shayama carries through in her cooking to this day. During the COVID lockdowns, acutely aware of what it was like to be far from home, Shayama wanted to help international students struggling in the pandemic the best way she knew how – through her food.
She would cook up Sri Lankan feasts – dal, curries, sambal – and distribute them to students, accepting only their gratitude in exchange. “We were also in a very hard situation,” she says. “But they are children. I knew I could give something to them. I don’t want them to be hungry. I am always happy to help people, and they were very happy. They said, ‘Thank you, aunty!’”
Shayama says this sense of goodwill isn’t unique to her. It’s built into her culture.
“Sri Lankans are very good-hearted people,” she says. “They have a good sense of hospitality. You invite strangers inside your home, and offer them something.”
Shayama loves to share the “real taste” of Sri Lankan food and, apart from dialling down the spiciness just a tad (“My mum used to make it much spicier,” she admits), she doesn’t change the recipes that have been passed down to her. “I want to show people exactly what Sri Lankan food is.”
At Free to Feed HQ, Shayama is the Chef de Partie of our kitchen, so we’ve been lucky enough to be eating her flavourful Sri Lankan feasts for a while. We’re so excited to have her share her food and generous spirit with more people. When it comes to her classes, Shayama wants them to feel like the bustling, energetic home of her childhood. “I want people chatting and talking and smiling,” she says.
Cooking isn’t just a job or a hobby for Shayama. “It’s my passion,” she says. When she cooks with others, she is recreating and sharing her sense of home. And feeding people, bringing them together to enjoy the flavours and spices of the place she remembers so fondly, in turn, feeds her soul. “I’m cooking because I want to make people happy,” she says. “And that makes me happy as well.”