By Bree Hutchins

I know which dish I'm going to try first from this cookbook: the simply named but delicious-sounding chilli bites, for which a yeast and flour dough mixture is flavoured with garlic and chilli powder, rolled out, cut into small crescents, then fried in coconut or vegetable oil.

I've never been to Sri Lanka, so I'm not familiar with all the recipes in this book, but, having read it, I am now eager to visit. The author, Bree Hutchins, is from Australia and she approaches her subject with an open mind, eager palate and outsider's curiosity. She was a photographer before turning her hand to writing, and the pictures of the country and the food are captivating.

The book begins with the cuisine of Colombo, in the west, before journeying to the centre, the east and the north. Hutchins writes about how various national festivals are celebrated and the home-cooking of the people she meets (these are the "hidden kitchens"). The stories about these people are colourful and varied: she whips up curries and pol roti (bread with coconut, chillies, onion and curry leaves) with inmates at Monaragala Prison; milk toffee with a snack maker; and crab curry and idlis (steamed savoury cakes) with a woman who survived a tsunami, bombs and refugee camps, and lost her husband shortly before the end of the civil war.