I've been asked so many times since I came back from Ethiopia what I actually did there, to which my usual reply is "ate lots of food and drank lots of coffee". True I could go on about all the historical sites, but what will really stick in my mind is the food.
Injera
Where better to start than injera, the national food. Made from a grain called tef, which is only found in Ethiopia, it is served at every meal and forms the staple of Ethiopian food. I find it really strange how it's not found anywhere else, and how there is actually no way to describe it because there is no "other food equivalent" to compare it to!
Resembling a large floppy flannel (or bathmat), it looks rubbery and unappealing. Mostly it takes on a light brown or grey colour, but occasionally we found lighter injera which is meant to be of higher quality. The batter is left to ferment for several days, which accounts for the sour taste as well as the bubbles on one side.
Injera is served with the dish of your choice, usually either a stew or something fried such as what seemed to be the national favourite, tibs (fried meat). There were generally few vegetarian options, except on fasting days when it was easy to find vegetarian food. My staples were shiro (pureed chickpeas), messir wat (lentil stew) and beyanetu (a mix of everything on fasting days).
I wasn't the biggest fan of injera to start with, but soon I got used to the taste. It seemed to accompany the spices of the dishes quite well, and after a while it felt strange to go a few meals without eating injera.
Breakfast
Breakfast is one of my favourite meals of the day. We were so lucky to stumble across No Name cafe in Aksum, where we had the best breakfasts in Ethiopia.
Fatar is an interesting breakfast - bread, probably from the day before, is fried with berbera (a type of red spice mix) and topped with fried eggs, a little tomato, red onion and chilli. Yoghurt is poured over the whole thing and then it's all tossed together. We discovered this breakfast by watching what others were eating at No Name, and it was probably my favourite breakfast in Ethiopia.
Another common breakfast food is foul, a garlicky chickpea mash eaten with bread. The one we had at No Name had plenty of chilli added, but in Harar the special foul wasn't very spicy at all, instead accompanied by a mix of eggs, tomatoes, lentils and broad beans.
In Bahir Dar we had this dish of chechebsa, like thin fried pieces of dough mixed with spices and fried egg. It reminded me of mianpian, a noodle dish eaten in north-eastern China.
In Harar there was a Muslim specialty of fatira, a crispy pancake served with egg or honey (or both)
Juice
Fresh juice is such a luxury, especially in a relatively fruit-deprived country. Most of the time we bought bananas and oranges to eat, but the fruit shake joints usually had avocado, papaya and guava juice.
One can get a mixed juice, where the available juices are layered. Most juices are served with lime and sometimes with this strange red syrup which I never figured out.
Coffee
Most days I would have 2-3 cups of coffee, sometimes more (especially in Addis when I could visit Tomoca!) There were many antique-looking espresso machines leftover from the Italian days, and the most memorable of these aside from the one in Tomoca was the one in a dark little bar opposite Africa Hotel in Aksum. This was a rusty red number, which gleamed a little in the dark and pumped out a damn smooth espresso.
Of course, there were many opportunities to drink coffee the traditional way, with coffee brewed in a terracotta pot over hot coals, then poured into tiny cups and taken black with copious amounts of sugar (up to 1/3 of the cup).
The coffee ceremony involves collecting the right type of grass (to bring in a sense of nature), burning special incense and the ritual preparation of the coffee. Traditionally it is also served with popcorn, which is a combination I never got used to.
Ambo
Last but not least, I loved sparkling water from a place called Ambo, about 50km west of Addis. Apparently the spring water here naturally flowed out of the ground with so many bubbles that even if left out overnight, it would still be bubbly the next day! I really wanted to go to Ambo to have an Ambo bath, but was told that the tap water in Ambo was flat. Disappointed, I resorted to drinking more Ambo instead.
Vegetarian friendliness
Finally, a little note on the degree of difficulty in getting vegetarian food in Ethiopia. Though I wasn't strictly vegetarian, I mostly stayed away from meat as my encounters with meat were far from appetising. Think large carcasses hanging outside restaurants from which your meal is chopped, lots of flies, non-existent refridgeration.. It was easy enough to find something vegetarian to eat, but I found the variety to be lacking on non-fasting days. There was almost always pasta with tomato sauce, and failing that, there's always shiro.
It was frustrating to see lots of vegetables in the market that just don't make it onto the menu because there was a perception that people want to eat meat when they go out to eat. Vegetables like cabbage and pumpkin hardly ever made it into restaurants, because they were considered "home food" or "poor food". Others like spinach were ubiquitously cooked with meat, and it was hard for non-Amharic speaking people to explore different options.
All up it wasn't too bad for vegetarians though - at least two days of the week (Wed & Fri) one can eat well!
Injera
Where better to start than injera, the national food. Made from a grain called tef, which is only found in Ethiopia, it is served at every meal and forms the staple of Ethiopian food. I find it really strange how it's not found anywhere else, and how there is actually no way to describe it because there is no "other food equivalent" to compare it to!
Injera with lentil stew (Top view, Addis)
Resembling a large floppy flannel (or bathmat), it looks rubbery and unappealing. Mostly it takes on a light brown or grey colour, but occasionally we found lighter injera which is meant to be of higher quality. The batter is left to ferment for several days, which accounts for the sour taste as well as the bubbles on one side.
Injera is served with the dish of your choice, usually either a stew or something fried such as what seemed to be the national favourite, tibs (fried meat). There were generally few vegetarian options, except on fasting days when it was easy to find vegetarian food. My staples were shiro (pureed chickpeas), messir wat (lentil stew) and beyanetu (a mix of everything on fasting days).
Tibs, the national dish of stir fried meat (bus pit-stop)
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A non-veg Beyanetu for tourists (Habesha, Gonder)
The best Beyanetu ever (Seven Olives, Lalibela)
Spicy fish stew (Cafe Wude, Bahir Dar)
Raw meat, a real delicacy (random roadside pub, Babille)
I wasn't the biggest fan of injera to start with, but soon I got used to the taste. It seemed to accompany the spices of the dishes quite well, and after a while it felt strange to go a few meals without eating injera.
Breakfast
Breakfast is one of my favourite meals of the day. We were so lucky to stumble across No Name cafe in Aksum, where we had the best breakfasts in Ethiopia.
Another common breakfast food is foul, a garlicky chickpea mash eaten with bread. The one we had at No Name had plenty of chilli added, but in Harar the special foul wasn't very spicy at all, instead accompanied by a mix of eggs, tomatoes, lentils and broad beans.
Special foul (random place, Harar)
In Bahir Dar we had this dish of chechebsa, like thin fried pieces of dough mixed with spices and fried egg. It reminded me of mianpian, a noodle dish eaten in north-eastern China.
Chechebsa with egg (Cafe Wude, Bahir Dar)
In Harar there was a Muslim specialty of fatira, a crispy pancake served with egg or honey (or both)
Fatira with honey (Cafe Abyssinia, Harar)
Juice
Fresh juice is such a luxury, especially in a relatively fruit-deprived country. Most of the time we bought bananas and oranges to eat, but the fruit shake joints usually had avocado, papaya and guava juice.
Juice house, Harar
One can get a mixed juice, where the available juices are layered. Most juices are served with lime and sometimes with this strange red syrup which I never figured out.
Mixed juice (papaya/avocado/guava), Aksum
Coffee
Most days I would have 2-3 cups of coffee, sometimes more (especially in Addis when I could visit Tomoca!) There were many antique-looking espresso machines leftover from the Italian days, and the most memorable of these aside from the one in Tomoca was the one in a dark little bar opposite Africa Hotel in Aksum. This was a rusty red number, which gleamed a little in the dark and pumped out a damn smooth espresso.
Of course, there were many opportunities to drink coffee the traditional way, with coffee brewed in a terracotta pot over hot coals, then poured into tiny cups and taken black with copious amounts of sugar (up to 1/3 of the cup).
The coffee ceremony involves collecting the right type of grass (to bring in a sense of nature), burning special incense and the ritual preparation of the coffee. Traditionally it is also served with popcorn, which is a combination I never got used to.
Ambo
Last but not least, I loved sparkling water from a place called Ambo, about 50km west of Addis. Apparently the spring water here naturally flowed out of the ground with so many bubbles that even if left out overnight, it would still be bubbly the next day! I really wanted to go to Ambo to have an Ambo bath, but was told that the tap water in Ambo was flat. Disappointed, I resorted to drinking more Ambo instead.
Vegetarian friendliness
Finally, a little note on the degree of difficulty in getting vegetarian food in Ethiopia. Though I wasn't strictly vegetarian, I mostly stayed away from meat as my encounters with meat were far from appetising. Think large carcasses hanging outside restaurants from which your meal is chopped, lots of flies, non-existent refridgeration.. It was easy enough to find something vegetarian to eat, but I found the variety to be lacking on non-fasting days. There was almost always pasta with tomato sauce, and failing that, there's always shiro.
It was frustrating to see lots of vegetables in the market that just don't make it onto the menu because there was a perception that people want to eat meat when they go out to eat. Vegetables like cabbage and pumpkin hardly ever made it into restaurants, because they were considered "home food" or "poor food". Others like spinach were ubiquitously cooked with meat, and it was hard for non-Amharic speaking people to explore different options.
All up it wasn't too bad for vegetarians though - at least two days of the week (Wed & Fri) one can eat well!
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