Sri Lankan food is not for the timid eater: the fiery curries, sweet caramelized onion in seeni sambal (onion relish), and sour lime pickle are all dominant, powerful flavors that startle awake senses dulled by the thick, hot island air. While visitors to the island—or those eating in Sri Lankan restaurants outside the country—may find watered down versions, most Sri Lankan cooking is unapologetically, punch-you-in-the-face, get-the-adrenaline-pumping flavored.

Rice is an ever-present antidote to these big flavors. A meal in Sri Lanka is called “rice and curry”—a term that’s almost synonymous with food in general. There’s rice, of course, and usually a curry with a thin broth and large chunks of the featured protein (beef, pork, fish, goat, and on from there), plus an assortment of side dishes—anywhere from four to nine or ten, depending on the time and place. For a quicker bite, there are “short eats,” a Sri Lankan term essentially denoting snacks—often a coconut roti with hot sauce, a newspaper cone of fried spiced chickpeas, or maybe a samosa.

All the food, whether coconut sambal made from coconut plucked from a nearby tree and served as part of a rice and curry, or a shrimp vadai (fritter) purchased from a vendor through a train window and wrapped in his children’s old schoolwork, bears marks of Sri Lanka’s geography and culture. As with many island nations, traders rampaged across the island, bringing spices (the now ubiquitous red pepper), dishes (a “Chinese roll” looks suspiciously like what we’d call an egg roll in the States), and whole categories of food (such as Dutch sweets).

75% of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese (mostly Buddhist), and the food generally described as Sri Lankan is their food. Tamils (mostly Hindus), especially those in the north, use slightly different spices and other ingredients in their curries, but the format of the dishes is similar to food found on the rest of the island. Many Westerners’ only reference to Tamil culture is the Tamil Tigers, a group of militant separatists from the north. Since the government’s defeat of the group in 2009, the island is quite safe for tourists, though the new reputation has not fully spread—so this exciting, delicious destination remains affordable to visit. (If this article makes your mouth water, go now!)

The building blocks of Sri Lankan cuisine are rice, coconut, and native tropical fruits and vegetables. Every Sri Lankan cookbook I’ve found has multiple pages on the preparation of rice, with one, Ceylon Cookery, devoting five full pages to the topic. The island grows some 15 varieties of rice (down from 280 just 50 years ago, and 400 in times before that), some of which are used for various types of rice flour pancakes (called hoppers) and rice noodles (called string hoppers).

But coconut’s not just for drinking: every rice and curry is served with pol sambal, a scraped coconut condiment that varies in spiciness from table to table. Coconut is a major ingredient in the greens dish mallum, and, of course, it’s a big player in the island’s sweets. When I started testing Sri Lankan recipes, the first thing I did was buy a giant bag of desiccated coconut.

Stroll through the countryside and the fragrant smell of cardamom and curry leaves will inevitably grab you. In the city, piles of turmeric and fennel seed sit in ceramic pots at the market, waiting patiently for their turn in a curry. These spices are fundamental to the cuisine, serving as the base for the many curries, sambals (relishes), sundals (salads), and mallums (greens dishes) served with most meals. Black pepper is native to the island and was the most powerful spice in Sri Lankan cooking before spicy peppers arrived on colonial era trading ships. Black pepper curries still pop up on menus, and are worth seeking out for the original flavors of the island—and because they offer an entirely different type of heat

Sri Lankan curries feature sizable chunks of fresh protein swimming in bright, fragrantly-spiced broths. Along the coasts, you’ll often see fish, shrimp, or crab. In the high hills of central Sri Lanka, pork is used; chicken, beef, goat, and lamb are found island-wide. Crab curry is the stunner, and rightly famous, with the delicate local crab meat absorbing brilliant Sri Lankan spices.

A curry’s color is determined by how various spices are initially used and treated. Pork curry, which you’ll see in every color from light yellow to a nearly black shade, is often made with golaka, a dried fruit somewhat like tamarind, which gives sticky, sour notes to balance the otherwise rich broth (the pork is always cooked with all the fat left on). Deep red “Jaffna curry,” usually Tamil-style versions from the northern part of the island, is most often made with goat and with seafood. The goat version tends to be the hotter, with even more peppers than you’ll find elsewhere, standing up to the strong flavor of the meat. Seafood curries, meanwhile, often have an additional secret ingredient: the ground, dried stalk of the palm fruit. Used as a thickener and for its nutty flavor, it’s not an easy ingredient to find outside Sri Lanka.

On the table with the main curry, there is always a pappadum (lentil crisp), some coconut sambal, and a lentil curry (dhal). This is not so different from any dhal you’d find at an Indian restaurant, though Sri Lankan dhal tends toward a thinner texture, and, again, the spices are amplified.

What else to serve with a curry? Some version of savory onion sambal (lunu miris) is common, with chopped shallots, lime juice, Maldive fish, and red pepper to provide a sharp, spicy bite with a touch of raw shallot crunch. Seeni sambal (sweet condiment), usually made with rich caramelized onions brings a softer, more mild spice, tamed by the sugary sweetness. There is no road map for how to eat the condiments served with Sri Lankan food, but since you’re digging in with your fingers, scooping up a bit with your rice and curry is usually easiest, though sambal can also be spooned onto a roti or pappadum

Though most meals—whatever the hour—consist of rice and curry, hoppers are also a breakfast staple, taking over the starch portion of the meal. These bowl-shaped pancakes, cooked in a rounded pan (like a miniature wok), are best with an egg fried into the bottom. Made from fermented rice flour, they are used to pick up many of the same curries and accoutrements that rice would, especially the sweetened seeni sambals.

The non-rice-based starches that you’ll see in Sri Lankan food tend to be the dishes that come from Indian neighbors: dosa (sometimes spelled thosai) and gambota roti (like a Southeast Asian roti, a flaky, layered pancake). There’s also a uniquely Sri Lankan version of roti, made with coconut flour. It forms a thick disk, and can be found at breakfast and throughout the day as a “short eat” at roadside stands, where a generous dollop of chili sauce makes it a sustaining snack