One of my goals in life is to try as big a variety of foods and drinks as I reasonably can. Which is one of the reasons I run this type of post so often on my blog. Anyway, part of this is sampling things from, ideally, every country in the world. I haven't done an exact tally, but it's still fun to cross another nation off my list. Which leads us to today. As you can guess, I've never, to my knowledge, had anything from Sri Lanka before. So I was excited to see than the canned coconut milk and canned jackfruit I got from the Native Forest brand were grown in this place.
I often complain that the company which made the product I'm trying that week reveals next to nothing about the founder(s) or the business's history. I can't make that claim today. If anything, the official company website was almost too detailed in this respect. Native Forest is a brand of the Edward & Sons Trading Company, Inc. An American man named Joel Dee was working for his family's candy company in the mid 1970's as a traveling salesman. (This confectionary was Ce De Inc., best known for making Smarties candies, and founded by Joel's dad Edward.) Joel had recently become a vegetarian, and had a hard time finding vegetarian-appropriate food in the U.S. at that time. A trip to Belgium in 1976 provided him with a type of freeze-dried miso (for the Japanese soup) that he really liked. Alas, American health food stores didn't stock this, as "convenience food" was not something they were interested in selling. Plus, many available forms of miso from Asia contained things that Joel didn't want, such as artificial ingredients, preservatives, and even fish. A visit to Japan in 1977 was fruitful, as in conjunction with Japanese creators Joel came up with a type of freeze-dried miso that fit his specifications. So, in 1978, Joel quit his job at Ce De Inc. and started the Edward & Sons Trading Company, Inc., which at that time just sold the miso. He spent 1979 traveling the U.S, in an Airstream trailer, visiting health food stores and restaurants to promote his product. In the same year Joel started making a Japanese style of rice cracker, add to his company's output. In 1980 Dee set up headquarters in North Carolina. By 1988 the company moved to its permanent headquarters, in Carpinteria, California. Edward & Sons began some more brands, and also bought out some existing ones. Some of these are Let's Do Organic, Let's Do Gluten Free, The Wizard's, and More Than Fair. The company's overall slate of wares includes croutons, bouillon cubes, coconut, crackers, flour, starches, fruit, gravies, mashed potatoes, ice cream cones, sprinkles, sauces, and of course, miso. Befitting the founder's philosophy, all the products are free of GMOs and gluten, and the cans used in storing their foods are non-BPA.
Native Forest organic coconut milk: It had a white color, with a thick texture. I had to stir it a bit. I heated some up and put it in with some microwaved meals. On Swedish meatballs and noodles it was pretty good--the sweetness combined with the savory tastes was a good pairing. It wasn't that good with mini rigatoni in a vodka cream sauce. It didn't add anything of value. Plain it was kind of bland. Not very sweet, or savory. Just kind of a creamy nothing. I've had coconut water, and enjoyed that, but this milk isn't very good as a drink, and not that great mixed in certain dishes. On three cheese ziti and meatballs it was okay on the meatballs, not that great otherwise. It seems I like coconut milk on meat, but not really on other things, and not just by itself.
Native Forest organic jackfruit: These were thin slices, brownish-yellow in color, and chewy in texture. Soaked in vinegar? The flavor was savory more than sweet. It tasted like a vegetable, maybe akin to an artichoke or heart of palm. Plain it was barely okay, but not great. The taste was kind of mealy. It was better with ketchup or tomato sauce on it. That way it even kind of grew on me a little bit. But still not something dazzling, nothing I'd be eager to have again.
So now let's discuss some famous folks who are/were Sri Lankan, or at least have/had Sri Lankan heritage. First off, this nation has had two Olympic medal winners. Duncan White won a silver medal in the 1948 Summer games, in the men's 400 meter hurdles event. Then, in the 2000 Summer games, Susanthika Jayasinghe won a bronze medal in the women's 200 meter run. But it was upgraded to a silver after Marion Jones admitted to cheating. Otherwise, many of the most famous athletic Sri Lankans are so for the sport of cricket. Which I know nothing about. Anyway, Muttiah Muralitharan and Kumar Sangakkara are two of the most decorated and famous cricket players in the nation.
Switching to acting, Fabianne Therese is Sri Lankan/American, and she has been in such films as "John Dies at the End" (2012), "Playing it Cool" (2013), "Southbound" (2015), "Teenage Cocktail" (2016), and "Hover" (2018). Bernard White was born in what's now Sri Lanka, but is now American. He's been in such movies as "Body Count" (1987), "City of Angels" (1998), "Pay it Forward" (2000), "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003, and 2003), and "Chee and T" (2016). The late Albert Moses was in such films as "The Man Who Would be King" (1975), "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), "An American Werewolf in London" (1981), and "Octopussy" (1983), "
Moving to writing, the late author Rosemary Rogers is of Dutch/Portuguese heritage, but was born in what's now Sri Lanka. She was a hugely successful romance writer, who penned the Legend of Morgan-Challenger series, and the Logan Doulogy series, among others. Otherwise, Sri Lankan-born physicist, engineer, and economist Mohan Munasinghe shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, as he was the vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Finally, Sri Lankan astronomer Nalin Samarasinha was the first person from his country to have an asteroid named after him.
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