Jaffna: a culinary capital, the crab and the palmyrah sold as a cuisine

A first step

Cook 4 dishes, the crab curry, a palmyrah sweet and two others from a Jaffna home kitchen, and serve them as a set tasting menu to 12 paying guests at a supper in a house or guesthouse. Photograph every plate and note what each guest would pay next time. Then send the menu and the photographs to 2 Colombo restaurants and ask whether they would host it as a guest night.

Who pays first

A visitor to Jaffna, or a Colombo diner, who has heard of the crab and wants to eat it as a proper menu rather than a roadside dish.

What leaves today

The crab and the palmyrah are sold as ingredients, not as a cuisine with a name, so the premium a named cuisine commands is never earned.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. SeventeenOne Building
  One building, and what a city could be known for

More from cluster 26

• 476Colombo: a night market on the Galle Face green run to a standard, every weekend
• 477Colombo: the Pettah as a managed market street, cleaned, lit and sold to visitors as the best bazaar in Asia
• 478Kandy: the lake promenade with cafés and evening performances, not only the temple
• 479Galle: a residents' company that owns the Fort's tourist lets and keeps the residents in
• 481Trincomalee: the harbour as a sailing and diving centre for the Bay of Bengal
• 482Negombo: the fish market and the canals as Sri Lanka's Venice, done before the residents leave

All 10 ideas in this cluster