Ethiopian recollection
Sunday, 15 March 2009 by nalika
No they are not hand towels...
Fish goulash with injera, that is.
Ah yes, Ethiopia.
Ah yes, Ethiopia.
A couple of years back I had a week in Ethiopia.
After the anglophone part of deep East Africa, Ethiopia felt a bit like Europe.
One of the reasons is that their lovely Italian style macchiato... not to mention Ethiopia's superb coffee.
I know there are plenty of bad things about colonization, but like French style café's and baguettes in Laos, the Europeans have left some yummy trails.But the huge greasy spaghetti that came with a pile of fries was less European... was more African, for their love of carbo and fries.
After a couple of tries of European style dishes and having learned that they are huge carbo-grease bombs, I started to stick with Ethiopian food.
I was trying to de-meat my diet while in Ethiopia, having felt I had so much meat in East Africa.
Fish goulash was one of the few choices on regular days.
But on vegetarian days - the Ethiopian orthodox church sets two days a week as vegetarian days - the restaurants have nice vegetarian specials.
I had this in Lalibela. Several bean stews and salad.
I was in Lalibela for the Ethiopian Christmas. I sat down with a French photographer staying at the same lodge, who ordered himself some meat stew dish, but kept stealing my bean stew... I thought French men were nicer.I had this deluxe one in Addis Ababa. I wish the vegetarian special was available seven days a week!
pointless comment!
Great post. Are there any good Ethiopian food bloggers out there? I need someone to discuss the ins and outs of injera in Ethiopia - I've heard that it's different to the local (Australian) version which uses less teff flour. It certainly looks greyer in Ethiopia.
One of my local Ethiopian joints does a great vege spread - but it pales in comparison to your deluxe version in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopian food is popular in the vegan community ...because there are usually suitable menu options at restaurants abroad...
would also be interesting to find out more about Eritrean food.....
A lot of Eritrean people in Germany but so far I have not visited a restaurant.
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Hi Phil - Ethiopian food bloggers, not that I know of... do they have some says on Ethiopian food on the African food blog Maytel introduced some while ago?
Yeah, I guess injera outside Ethiopia is in general whiter than the original, I am not sure if it is to save teff flour and mix with something else or they just use whiter varieties for more gentrified taste.
K'jam - thanks for three comments :-) Right, I recall in eastcoast US Ethiopian restaurants had a good variety of veggie options. The menu in Ethiopia was really meaty. Want goat or beef? kind of affair. Even though they list veggie options on their menus most of the places didn't have them on non-veggie days.
Here'e Eritrean food served in Tokyo:
http://e-food.jp/blog/archives/2009/02/eritrea_week.html