In a travel-oriented blog, people like to talk about food.
The food in Ethiopia is interesting. It’s okay. I wouldn’t call it great. I don’t go to Ethiopia for the food.
If I was going somewhere for the food, I’d head back to Italy, where I’ve already been twice. The food there is beyond compare. And yet, as Jesus reminds us, “there is more to life than food.” And so my money and effort has been focused on Ethiopia, where things are happening spiritually that are more important than food.
But there are a few interesting things to discuss about Ethiopian food.
Firstly, the main “food” in Ethiopia is coffee. Coffee is everywhere. It grows on trees. Literally. Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia. There are coffee ceremony “stands” everywhere you look, like hot dog stands or coke machines in America.
Secondly, all the food in Ethiopia is generally eaten without utensils, by hand, using pieces of spongy bread called injera to grab and pick up the food. This food is often a spicy beef stew type dish. Sometimes there is egg, or a cottage cheese kind of thing, or maybe some potatoes and other vegetables and fruit.
Injera is quite interesting. Last trip, after my first week of eating probably 100 pieces of injera, I started to worry that my struggle with high blood sugar was going ballistic. I did some research.
Injera is made from an ancient grain called “tef,” and it is grown almost exclusively in Ethiopia. Well, wouldn’tcha know it? Tef turns out to be some kind of miracle diabetes food. It breaks down very slowly and allows the body to release the sugars at the proper time or something (I don’t how it works, I just know I can eat it).
More confirmation to me that Ethiopia is a place I am supposed to be involved with.
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