Sri Lanka has long been renowned for its spices. Since ancient times, traders from all over the world who came to Sri Lanka brought their native cuisines to the island, resulting in a rich diversity of cooking styles and techniques. The island nation’s cuisine mainly consists of boiled or steamed rice served with curry. This usually consists of a ‘main curry’ of fish, chicken, pork or mutton (typically goat), as well as several other curries made with vegetables, lentils and even fruit curries. Side-dishes include pickles, chutneys and ‘sambols’. The most famous of these is the coconut sambol, made of grated coconut mixed with chili peppers, dried Maldives fish and lime juice. This is ground to a paste and eaten with rice, as it gives zest to the meal and is believed to increase appetite. Another well-known rice dish is kiribath, meaning ‘milk rice’. In addition to sambols, Sri Lankans eat ‘mallung’, chopped leaves mixed with grated coconut and red onions. Coconut milk is found in most Sri Lankan dishes to give the cuisine its unique flavours. Sri Lankan people use spices liberally in their dishes and typically do not follow an exact recipe: thus, every cook’s curry will taste slightly different. Furthermore, people from different regions of the island (for instance, hill-country dwellers versus coastal dwellers) traditionally cook indifferent ways while people of different ethnic and religious groups tend to prepare dishes according to their customs. Although Sri Lankan food appears similar to South Indian cuisine in its use of chili, cardamom, cumin, coriander, turmeric and other spices, it has a distinctive taste, and uses ingredients like dried Maldives fish which are local to the area.