• 'MasterChef Australia' Season 16 semifinalist Savindri ‘Sav’ Perera on showcasing SL cuisine in the MasterChef kitchen

She has been taking over social media and our hearts by storm and she recently hung up her apron after a strong performance on Season 16 of 'MasterChef Australia' as its third place finalist. She is Savindri or Sav Perera and she has been taking Sri Lankan cuisine places with some of the most mouthwatering dishes those judges have tasted, judging by their response to each dish that she presented on the show. She is a banking consultant by profession or as she describes it, a means to an end. She has been innovating in the kitchen since she was 12 and she describes her cooking style as rustic, generous, and colourful. She has made an impact in the MasterChef arena for being unapologetically proud of her Sri Lankan heritage, and, of course, for being one of the most positive and bubbly contestants ever. 

‘Kaleidoscope’ featured Perera last week while she was on a quick visit to Sri Lanka, fresh off the heels of her concluding episode on Season 16 of ‘MasterChef Australia’.  

Following are excerpts from the interview:

You just missed out on being in the top two on ‘MasterChef Australia,’ but no one can deny that you were a culinary genius in that kitchen. What was the key takeaway from this?

The key takeaway for me was the growth that happened on the show. One of my biggest reasons for being there was because I wanted to put myself out of my comfort zone and into a space where I grew. The friendships that we formed on the show are cherished as well. 

What was your best dish?

In terms of personal growth, I think that the best dish was my Carolina Reaper and Prawn Consommé because that’s something I’ve never done in my life before. But, I still think that the Lamprais I made was up there too, because to do that in 90 minutes is utter madness and I’m very proud of myself for pulling it off.

You quit your job as a banking consultant to get on ‘MasterChef’. Was that decision an easy one for you?

It was not an easy decision to quit my job by any means because it was my livelihood. I had to think about how I was going to fund myself while I was away. Everyone has bills to pay and it’s also walking away from stability, which is why it was such a big thing for me to do and it’s not just a personal decision as it was disrupting my life as well. I just told myself that if I don’t do it now and if I don’t push myself, I’m never going to do it, so I have to do it now.

You faced immense criticism while being on the show. What was the most horrible criticism you dealt with?

The worst criticism was that I’m a one trick pony and that I can’t cook anything besides Sri Lankan food. That was unsettling to hear but I knew that the whole point of my being on MasterChef was to represent Sri Lankan food because it is criminally underrated, it’s not represented in a lot of places internationally. I was aware that I would cop that criticism the moment I decided to do primarily Sri Lankan cuisine. However, I’ve actually showcased a lot of non-Sri Lankan dishes as well, but, people always focus on and hone in on that one thing. That was a hard pill to swallow but everyone’s going to have something to say. It is what it is. 

What have you learned about yourself while being on ‘MasterChef’? 

The biggest thing I learned about myself is the capacity of my own resilience. I usually am a bit of a princess. I don’t like when things get too hard or too hot or too sweaty. But, being in those highly pressurised environments where you have no choice but to keep going even when things have split, are not working out, and you’re running out of time. I was just caught off guard by how unwilling I am to just give up and that was a nice surprise for me.

What is it about Sri Lankan food that sets it apart?

People from the outside looking in confuse Sri Lankan food for Indian food and we always get swept under that same umbrella. But the way I look at Sri Lankan cuisine is that any meal is a masterclass in balance. You never have just one thing or you never have just a meat dish and two veggies. We have our carbs, something spicy, something creamy, something crunchy, and something fresh. Everything offsets each other and creates this very complex balance. There’s nothing quite like this in any other cuisine in the world. We also champion the use of our regional food which is a healing food, because there’s a lot of ayurvedic ingredients in our cooking. Sri Lankan cuisine is so unique and it guts me that it’s so underrated.

What would you say was your catalyst or your ‘a-ha moment’ that turned you to food?

The weird thing is that I don’t think I ever really had a catalyst because I was fortunate enough to grow up with an immediate and extended family that loves food. My mom was a very good cook, but my aunts and uncles were also big foodies. My aunts are really good cooks as well. My uncle Johanne got us used to going to the Cricket Club Café and other places, restaurant spaces. My first restaurant experiences in Colombo were actually with my aunts and uncles and that culture of really good food. Nothing is subpar. I then got into watching Nigella Lawson and was exposed to European cuisine in a very attractive way with the way she speaks. It’s all very sensual and appealing and I just wanted to explore more. It was a compounding effect where I just built and built and built and finally found myself cooking food and loving it.

You describe your mum as your food hero. What’s the most memorable thing that you remember about her cooking?

There’s a constant memory; on weekends, my father would go to the fish market and buy fresh crab. I would wake up on Saturday or Sunday mornings smelling chillie being fried, because my mum was cooking. Also, the countless dinner parties we had at home were constant.  The house was always full of people; the doors were wide open, the French windows wide open, and people spilling out everywhere, with table surfaces just covered with food my mum made. 

There was another Sri Lankan in the competition – Darrsh Clarke – and recently, there was a comment on your Instagram where you called him the Mahela (a reference to cricketer Mahela Jayawardene) to your Sanga (a reference to cricketer Kumar Sangakkara). What was it like cooking alongside and competing with a fellow Sri Lankan?

It’s interesting for me because I am very much an immigrant and that Sri Lankan identity is very strong in me because I really don’t identify as an Australian. Clarke sees himself as an Australian because he was born there and is a second generation immigrant. He doesn’t necessarily have that same influence that I have but you see it coming through. Clarke is an exceptional dessert maker and he’s making things influenced by Sri Lankan culture – date cake and love cake, for example – and you see all those little influences come through. For me, it never really felt like a competition because of how supportive we were towards each other. I made that joke about Jayawardene and Sangakkara because someone put up a picture of Sangakkara and Jayawardene holding hands after their last match and placed a picture of me and Clarke hugging and said, “the best duo since”. It was actually an honour to be equated to those legends. I’m really glad that Clarke got to show a different side of Sri Lankan food – the dessert side – and I'm really hoping that he gets on ‘MasterChef – Dessert Makers’ at some point because I think he will excel.

You were quite famous on social media with your cooking before MasterChef. What enticed you to put your cooking out there?

It comes back to learning to cook from my mom and then realising that Sri Lankan recipes really aren’t quantified well. There are a few cookbooks out there, but, there’s a lot of assumed knowledge about food that people rely on when they give recipes. If you’re brand new to Sri Lankan food and you’re following a recipe, you’ll be stuck and won’t end with the correct result. I was driven by a motivation to get other people cooking Sri Lankan food, because if you’re going to have representation, then you need to get people cooking the food as well. I started quantifying all my recipes, so there’s a lot of time and love that I put into narrowing down a lot of things. I actually became popular on social media for my chicken curry – it’s my pride and joy and a real testament to how much detail I’ve gone into, because so many people use it and get really good results. My Australian friends are cooking it now too and their dishes end up very close to mine. I call it the foolproof recipe because I broke it down to the absolute finest detail. Sri Lankan food can be complex but it’s also really rewarding to cook a good chicken curry.

Looking back now, is there anything you would have done differently in your cooking?

They say hindsight is 20-20, but, weirdly enough, I don’t think that I would have done anything differently. Even the mistakes I’ve made were instrumental in my being here and if I had less of a disrupted run, I don’t think I would have ended up where I ended up.  I grew so much and really honed my skills in this competition. 

Now that MasterChef is over, what’s next for you?

I want to take my momentum and drive things forward with Sri Lankan food. There’s a lot of things that I want to do in Sri Lanka as well. Unfortunately, Sri Lankan food within Sri Lanka is not treated with a level of elegance, which is quite sad. My problem is, if we ourselves are cheapening our own food, how do we expect people from other cultures to look in and appreciate its value? The thing is that Sri Lankan food is easy to learn but very hard to master. There’s much skill and technical knowledge that goes into making these dishes and these skills and knowledge are within women – in the common kitchens of Sri Lanka. You’re also, then, devaluing the labour of women when you’re saying, ‘oh, I can do better’. Does that mean that what’s cooked at home is not of value? I think about that all the time and I really want to contribute to that conversation about Sri Lankan food being elevated to nice fine dining. I’m planning to go into a few projects with collaborations that can actually make that happen.   

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)