Ethnic Eating 101: Ethiopian
Categories: Ethnic Eating 101
It's hard to overestimate what a debt I owe to the City and County of San Francisco. I wouldn't be half the lover of ethnic food I am if I hadn't spent so much time there. I was working on a contract for the state government, and I completely missed the stars of the locavore movement, the pride of San Francisco, because my per diem was $36 a day, parceled out into specific amounts for each meal.
Because I had to eat cheaply, I ended up discovering some of the foods that I still love best. My bánh mì cherry, for example, was popped at Saigon Sandwich on Turk and Larkin Streets for the princely sum of ninety cents and I spent the next three days going on about the flavor explosion in my mouth.
My first experience with Ethiopian food, though equally as mind-opening as the Vietnamese sandwiches, has a dark and prejudiced story behind it.
I had been walking through the farmers' market at UN Plaza and made a wrong turn down a little tiny street along the butt end of the San Francisco Public Library. I walked past an open door and smelled... heaven. Spices and butter and ginger and garlic and onions wafted out of the door, making me suddenly hungry despite the early hour. The sign said the lunch buffet was vegetarian and $5.99, which made my impecunious wallet very happy.
I was working with a Web development team--this was the height of the tech boom--and I suggested the Ethiopian place in Grove Street. A few people assented, and we headed out across Civic Center Plaza.
"Mm-mmm, I can't wait to try that deep-fried air!" one woman sneered.
"Yeah, with stick and dirt sauce!" countered the man on my left.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" I asked, mortified. "You wanted to come. Yet you're making these stupid jokes about a famine that happened fifteen years ago."
The meal was not a success. I had a wonderful time and thrilled to the new sensations of niter kebbeh and berbere and lentils and collards with bread; my dining partners poked suspiciously at the food with the serving spoons, asked me what was in every single thing, bristled when I couldn't tell them, and then left for greener (to them) pastures at Max's Opera Café, leaving me alone to apologise, red-faced, to the upset woman running the front of the house.
It's a conversation I have often when I mention Ethiopian food to people who have never heard of it, despite the fact that we are now 25 years past the Ethiopian famine that was the impetus behind Live Aid. I've given up trying to convince some people, but this is an attempt to set that right.
Ethiopia has one of the richest, most interesting, most ancient sets of foodways in the world. No other cuisine on earth combines flavors as the Ethiopians (and Eritreans) do, no other cuisine on earth uses bread as plate, utensil and tablecloth, and with the possible exception of Indian cuisine, no other cuisine on earth cooks vegetables as well as Ethiopian.
Read on as we delve into the heart of East Africa.
 |
| aluka @ flickr.com CC BY-NC 2.0 |
| The Bete Gyorgis, a church literally carved out of the ground at Lalibela, Ethiopia. |
Because I had to eat cheaply, I ended up discovering some of the foods that I still love best. My bánh mì cherry, for example, was popped at Saigon Sandwich on Turk and Larkin Streets for the princely sum of ninety cents and I spent the next three days going on about the flavor explosion in my mouth.
My first experience with Ethiopian food, though equally as mind-opening as the Vietnamese sandwiches, has a dark and prejudiced story behind it.
I had been walking through the farmers' market at UN Plaza and made a wrong turn down a little tiny street along the butt end of the San Francisco Public Library. I walked past an open door and smelled... heaven. Spices and butter and ginger and garlic and onions wafted out of the door, making me suddenly hungry despite the early hour. The sign said the lunch buffet was vegetarian and $5.99, which made my impecunious wallet very happy.
I was working with a Web development team--this was the height of the tech boom--and I suggested the Ethiopian place in Grove Street. A few people assented, and we headed out across Civic Center Plaza.
"Mm-mmm, I can't wait to try that deep-fried air!" one woman sneered.
"Yeah, with stick and dirt sauce!" countered the man on my left.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" I asked, mortified. "You wanted to come. Yet you're making these stupid jokes about a famine that happened fifteen years ago."
The meal was not a success. I had a wonderful time and thrilled to the new sensations of niter kebbeh and berbere and lentils and collards with bread; my dining partners poked suspiciously at the food with the serving spoons, asked me what was in every single thing, bristled when I couldn't tell them, and then left for greener (to them) pastures at Max's Opera Café, leaving me alone to apologise, red-faced, to the upset woman running the front of the house.
It's a conversation I have often when I mention Ethiopian food to people who have never heard of it, despite the fact that we are now 25 years past the Ethiopian famine that was the impetus behind Live Aid. I've given up trying to convince some people, but this is an attempt to set that right.
Ethiopia has one of the richest, most interesting, most ancient sets of foodways in the world. No other cuisine on earth combines flavors as the Ethiopians (and Eritreans) do, no other cuisine on earth uses bread as plate, utensil and tablecloth, and with the possible exception of Indian cuisine, no other cuisine on earth cooks vegetables as well as Ethiopian.
Read on as we delve into the heart of East Africa.
Write Comment
Email to Friend
Print Article
