Pastries!

By now, my readers have concluded that I was not born in the US, but elsewhere, though you might still be uncertain as to exactly where!  I was born, and grew up in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon.  ('Sri', in Sri Lanka, is equivalent to 'Great' in Great Britain, so we could leave it out, really.)

In 1505, Portugal invaded Ceylon, aiming to cut out the middlemen in trading for spices.  (They might have aimed for India, and hit Ceylon, due to the vagaries of the currents.)

Later, the Dutch invaded Ceylon—again with a trade motivation—and colonized the entire seaboard.  Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch shipmen were encouraged to marry among the native population, and over the years, influenced Ceylonese cuisine quite strongly. 

The British succeeded the Dutch (I apologize for not giving the dates of these incursions, but I'm only confident in the 1505 date.)

The Dutch colonists picked up English quickly, and established a symbiotic relationship with the British.  But, most importantly, they set up some businesses that specialized in livestock.  It was no surprise that they also created stores that were effectively delicatessens.

When I was a kid, there were outlets all over the country, which were pastry shops.  Unlike the pastry shops we have around here, most of the snacks that they sold in these stores were savories, not sweets!

There were patties, which were circles of pastry, with a meat filling in the center (the pastry would be folded in half, and pasted together).  Cutlets were balls of beef, or chicken, or fish, or simply mashed potatoes, seasoned nicely, dipped in beaten egg, then in breadcrumbs, and deep fried. 

There were baked snacks, too; hard-boiled eggs, sometimes with a morsel of bacon, rolled in bread dough, and baked.  Pancake rolls were made to accommodate Ceylonese tastes, and were a meat curry mixture, with shredded vegetables, rolled inside a thin pancake covering (much like Chinese Spring Rolls), covered in breadcrumbs, and deep fried. 

When I visited Colombo around 2010, these sorts of stores were flourishing.  Most of the Dutch colonials—descendants of the original Dutch colonists, who had inter-married with Ceylonese—had emigrated to Australia around the 1970's.  But Sri Lankan businessmen had taken over the pastry shops, and though to some degree the quality had declined, the variety of offerings was being maintained. 

This brings me to my sad point: are there no businesses that offer these sorts of foods in the Eastern US?  Pigs in Blankets come close, and—I just remembered—some offerings in gas stations are a little like Ceylonese pastries.  But there really aren't anything that comes any closer to the pastries that I remember!

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