To mark the 84th Birthday and the 65th Anniversary as a Chef at Mount Lavinia Hotel three books written by Veteran Chef DrPabilis Silvawere launched under the patronage of Education Minister Professor GLPeries at the BMICHrecently.First of the three books,The Art of Cookery, is a practical cookery book for children studying in hotel schools. AthuruAhara, the second book, teaches bakery, short-eats and kavili. The third, Food of the Nations, includes Tamil, Muslim, Malay, Burger and Adivasi Cuisines.
The most well-known Master Chef in Sri Lanka today, joined the Mount Lavinia Hotel in 1957 and was promoted to the post of cook in 1960 after an extensive training in all sections, Mr. Pablis Silva has been the cook for the late Sir Oliver Goonatileke, the then Ex-Governor General of Ceylon, and the late Sir John Kotalawalaone-time Prime Minister of Ceylon.
During the period the Mount Lavinia Hotel was managed by the Hyatt Corporation of USA, he underwent training under foreign cookery experts and was promoted as Assistant Chef at Mount Lavinia Hyatt in 1972, in 1974 he served in the capacity of executive Chef at the Kuramathi Tourist Island Resort in the Maldives in the year 1983.
He organized the cookery competition, Food and Travel Mart, held in Sri Lanka for the first time in 1986. He was also the main technical coordinator of Bak Maha Asiriya food exhibition 1992 and 1993 held at the BMICHwhich had the participation of over 16,500 persons on the two occasions.
Dr Pabilis Silva organized several International Food Festivals in collaboration with food experts in Canada, Germany, Singapore China, and India. He has traveled to several countries in the world to host Sri Lankan food festivals in world-renowned hotels in Switzerland, Holland, England, Sweden, France, Germany, Belgium, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia Pakistan, Maldives, India, Dubai and Bahrain.
Chef Pabilis was invited to Japan to introduce Sri Lankan Cuisine to some of the well-known Japanese Chefs.
Chef Pabilis presents number of cookery demonstrations to the public through both electronic and printed media. He is invited to train Home Science Teachers, students and housewives on Sri Lankan cuisine at many regional seminars. Chef Pabilis is in the forefront in introducing new Sri Lankan food preparations and works on standardization of Sri Lankan food preparations.
He also researched and presented the traditional meal partaken by the last King of Sri Lanka-Sri WickramaRajasinghe and also of Andare the court Jester. He has also introduced a method of preserving Sri Lankan food for a period of over two years without using any preservatives or refrigeration. Chef Pabilis introduced a dry curry powder containing all curry ingredients required to make a proper Sri Lankan curry, which could be cooked in 20 minutes. Currently this is being promoted in UK, Dubai and Australia.
Chef Pablis’s most recent achievement was to enter the Guinness Book of records by cooking the largest and longest Kiribath (traditional rice of good omen) with 1020kg of rice and presented it on a 600 ft long table. The accompanying KattaSambol that weighed 240kg was pounded manually by 12 chefs.
Chef Pabilis has published books, one in 1992 titled Sinhala Bhojana and one in 2005 titled Hela RatawataIwumPihum introducing traditional and new Sri Lankan dishes.
