Ethiopian staple food

If you are jealous by nature, then let me congratulate you first: you already have the basic conditions for eating injera. The local staple food in Ethiopia tastes like vinegar mixed with water. Its name is "Injera". When I heard the name for the first time, I inexplicably thought of the English Channel. This is a sour gray soft pancake made from local teff flour or barley flour, fermented and baked in a pan.

I often see locals making injera. The thick paste after fermentation looks like water-filled cement. Pour a ladle onto a special large electric frying pan, smooth it evenly, then cover it and bake it. The prepared injera is as big as an Indian pancake. The side on the pan looks smoother, while the other side looks like a honeycomb. Generally, a large plastic bucket can make dozens of them, which is enough for an Ethiopian family with many children. Eat for several days.

According to the traditional way of eating, injira is placed on a large basket made of reeds, and a family or several people gather around it to eat it with their hands. It feels quite Xinjiang The taste of people eating hand-caught mutton.

The locals almost all eat injera for lunch and dinner, just like the Chinese love rice. When eating, just tear off a small piece of injera with your hands, then use it to grab some hot sauce or "wot" or "fitfit" and stuff it into your mouth. The latter two are dishes, with chicken and mutton. Or beef is stewed as the main raw material. "Wot" mainly adds chili and curry powder, and "fitefit" mainly adds chili, cream and other spices.

Generally speaking, the quality of "watt" depends on the family's financial situation. The "watt" used by people who are not well-off to eat injera is a kind of potato, onion or tomato with a lot of added Sauce made from chili powder. The "watt" used in better conditions can be chicken sauce or beef and mutton fried with onions. The taste of "watt" made by restaurants of different levels is also very different.

I think the cruelest way to eat it is to mash freshly slaughtered beef, mix it with seasonings that suit your taste, and wrap it in injera to eat. Ethiopians love to eat freshly slaughtered beef, which costs 30 birr per kilogram. When entertaining guests, the hostess likes to feed the raw beef into the guests' mouths piece by piece until they are satisfied, thinking that this is a sincere way of hospitality.

There are some stalls selling injera in the market, and the price is 1 birr. It doesn't look very hygienic. If you really want to eat injera, it is recommended to go to restaurants with higher-end decoration to avoid endless torment in the stomach.

In the 19 months since I came to Ethiopia, I have only eaten injera five or six times, and each time I only tasted a few symbolic mouthfuls. I am the kind of person who eats it but doesn’t miss it. As for whether you are used to eating it, just buy a bottle of white vinegar and mix it with water to give it a try. Hehe, just kidding, in fact, some injera with better ingredients tastes pretty good. I have heard people talk about the feeling of eating Injera, that is: you are not used to it the first time you eat it, but it will feel better the second time. The third, fourth, and Nth time, you will feel it getting better and better. tasty.

As for how you feel, you will know after you come to Ethiopia and give it a try.

Ethiopian meat and vegetables

Of course, if you are not used to eating injera, you have to make it yourself or go to a Chinese restaurant. However, Chinese restaurants are only opened in the capital Addis, with more than 10 of them. In other words, if you are not in the capital and want to eat Chinese food, you have to make it yourself.

Ethiopia is a country with herds of cattle and sheep. They can roam freely on the roads and cars have to go around them, so it is not difficult to buy beef and mutton. Except for Ramadan, the price of beef is 30 birr. You can buy a whole sheep for about 200 birr per kilogram, and the sheep seller will come to your residence to help you deal with it, just in case you can't stand the mutton smell. However, when cooking the mutton, put a few pieces of sugar cane in it to remove the smell. It is difficult to buy pork, and it is naturally expensive. The price listed in the supermarket is 50 birr per kilogram. You can also buy chickens. The current price of a chicken is 40 Birr. The price of fish varies from place to place. For example, Hawassa is cheaper. A fish as big as a person's height costs 40 birr. Of course, you generally won't buy such a big fish to eat. If you are near the reservoir, you can buy 5 kilograms of African crucian carp for 10 birr.

Of course, it is best to buy the fish whole and cut it up yourself. The fish that the locals cut open and sell only has two pieces of meat: the belly and the back. You have to add 1 birr for each fish as a processing fee. If you happen to be interested in fishing, you can grab a fishing rod and sit by the lake for half a day on weekends, and you can eat free fresh fish.

The most nutritious thing is eggs, which are pure local eggs. Compared with domestic eggs, they are much smaller. If you are lucky, you can encounter a few slightly larger ones. The price is 20 birr for 30 pieces. In order to ensure the nutrients your body needs, you can eat more.

The only common vegetables in Ethiopia are tomatoes, onions, potatoes, peanuts, cabbage, carrots, ginger and garlic. If you are in the capital, buying vegetables is not a problem. You can buy some vegetables that are not often found in the market in supermarkets or Chinese restaurants, such as eggplant, spinach, cauliflower, green beans, etc. Although the price is a bit more expensive, they are still fresh in season. You can buy them whenever you come across them.

Outside the capital, you can only buy the common dishes mentioned above, ranging from 2 to 4 Birr per kilogram. In Alba Munch's small grocery store, I occasionally find some green beans, pumpkins, and a kind of radish that is a little too red.

In order to improve nutrition, you can buy some beans and grains to eat. For example, soybeans and some red peppers can be used to stew beef. Various grains can be processed into powder by locals. Add water to make a paste and mix it with milk powder to drink. The latter can be used as a nutritious breakfast, add one or two pieces of bread, and the whole morning will be full. I won't be hungry.

Eating these kinds of dishes over and over again throughout the year will inevitably cause "fatigue" in the eyes and taste, so you have to put more effort into cooking, steaming, stir-frying and combinations, so you should pay attention before going abroad. Search the Internet for more information on how to make these dishes. Of course, in the future recipe series, I will also show you some dishes that I usually make. Please give me your valuable opinions.

Other food in Ethiopia

In addition to the staple food injera and Chinese food made with only vegetables, there are other choices:

There are spaghetti (PASTA) here, one is similar to domestic rice noodles or the powder used to make hot and sour noodles, white, and the more it is cooked, the thicker it will expand; the other is common macaroni.

In restaurants, this kind of PASTA can be eaten with tomato juice or gravy. In addition, in the Bahadar area in the north, there will be fried PASTA. From my personal taste, fried PASTA will be more delicious. , the other tastes are not that good, and there are flies in many restaurants, and the price is generally 12 to 15 birr per plate, which is quite expensive, so it is better to buy PASTA and cook it yourself.

The preparation is very simple, just cook it and mix it with the Laoganma you brought or stir-fried vegetables. Instant noodles are also available locally, but a small bag of them, which is similar in size to domestic dry noodles, costs 3 birr. Although the taste is not as good as what you have eaten before, you can still buy it occasionally to change the taste.

In addition, you can also buy local flour and make some homemade pancakes. If you have the opportunity, you can show off your growing cooking skills.

Of course, if you want to be lazy, you can only eat bread. Bread is usually sold in small shops for 1 birr each, but the taste is naturally not as good as the various domestic breads that exude the fragrance of milk. The most delicious bread I have ever eaten in Ethiopia is in Sodo. The bread there is baked and the outer layer tastes particularly fragrant. However, I really miss the bread in China. I remember that every time I went to Carrefour supermarket, I would buy that kind of cheap and high-quality Mexican bread, but now I only have the portion I want.

There are also some coffee shops selling various pastries in various places, but I don’t know whether it’s due to the flour or the processing. Anyway, those pastries don’t taste very refined and the taste is relatively simple. But To be honest, the pastries are much more delicious than those breads.

As for changing your taste during the toothpasting festival, friends who work in Addis can go to various Chinese restaurants, Korean restaurants, or other national-style restaurants there, as long as they are available. But friends who work outside the capital can only eat barbecue, omelette, noodles and injera in local restaurants. You can only eat Western food in some restaurants aimed at foreign tourists, which will not be to your liking.

One thing to remember is that since we were not familiar with the local menu, many of the food we ordered came with injera. If you are not used to injera, you can ask the waiter to change it to injira. Be it rice or bread, don’t let your stomach suffer because you are too lazy or shy to speak.

Don’t think that consumption in Ethiopia will be very cheap. Eating out is generally more expensive and there are few dishes to choose from. It is recommended that you be more diligent and make your own meals, which will not only improve your cooking skills but also satisfy you. Appetite, why not?

Remarks: 1 US dollar ≈ 10.6 birr. If exchanged on the black market in the capital, the rate will be higher than this.