Ethiopian Food Quotes

I have heard the Gedeo saying - nothing about a bull is inedible, except the sound it makes

When one is in love, a cliff becomes a meadow.” —Ethiopian proverb

I actually woke up feeling perfectly fine this morning, but I’m not going to let Holly know that. I like the couch bed. She’s brought me several cups of tea and a cheese & pickle sandwich and I’ve only forgotten to look sad once when she entered the room.

A typical American fast-food restaurant meal would include chicken (first domesticated in China) and potatoes (from the Andes) or corn (from Mexico), seasoned with black pepper (from India) and washed down with a cup of coffee (of Ethiopian origin).

You’re talking dream date compared to my horror. I started out fine, she’s a very nice person, and we’re sitting and we’re talking in this Ethiopian restaurant she wanted to go to. I was making jokes, like, “Hey, I didn’t know they had food in Ethiopia. This’ll be a quick meal. I’ll order two empty plates and we can leave.

Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry. I don't know what made me think of them. I had hidden them beneath several packages of dried pasta. Sam liked pistachio nuts. I bought them for a cake recipe I had seen in Gourmet. I stood up like a sleepwalker, my hands empty of sheets or shoes. I would take care of all this once the cake was in the oven. The recipe was from several months ago. I didn't remember which issue. I would find it. I would bake a cake. My father liked exotic things. On the rare occasions we went out to dinner together over the years, he always wanted us to go to some little Ethiopian restaurant down a back alley or he would say he had to have Mongolian food. He would like this cake. It was Iranian. There was a full tablespoon of cardamom sifted in with the flour, and I could imagine that it would make the cake taste nearly peppered, which would serve to balance out all the salt. I stood in the kitchen, reading the magazine while the sharp husks of the nuts bit into the pads of my fingers. I rolled the nut meat between my palms until the bright spring green of the pistachios shone in my hands, a fist full of emeralds. I would grind the nuts into powder without letting them turn to paste. I would butter the parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan. It was the steps, the clear and simple rules baking, that soothed me. My father would love this cake, and my mother would find this cake interesting, and Sam wouldn't be crazy about it but he'd be hungry and have a slice anyway. Maybe I could convince Camille it wasn't a cake at all. Maybe I could bring them all together, or at least that's what I dreamed about while I measured out the oil.

I told all of my friends about how great Ethiopian food was even though I knew that there was a good chance I’d be met with the tired joke, “They have food in Ethiopia?

Al-Shabaab seemed right about many things. The newsletter said that international aid was brought to ruin Somali agriculture and to make people dependent on foreign food; both had indeed been side effects of the relief effort. They said that the West wanted Somalis to be held in ‘camps, like animals’, which could be an accurate description of Dadaab. Most of all though, it was the rhetorical question posed in the newsletter that had the biggest impact among Guled’s traumatized generation: ‘Why invade a country that has been fighting a civil war for a decade and a half the moment they have decided to live in peace?’ The Islamic Courts Union had brought peace. It had been wildly popular and Somalis resented the US-sponsored Ethiopian invasion. ‘The United States cannot abide a situation in which Islam is the solution,’ the newsletter argued. And to many that seemed like the truth. The

1And now I swear unto you, to the wise and to the foolish, For ye shall have manifold experiences on the earth. 2For ye men shall put on more adornments than a woman, And colored garments more than a virgin: In royalty and in grandeur and in power, And in silver and in gold and in purple, And in splendor and in food they shall be poured out as water. 3Therefore they shall be wanting in doctrine and wisdom, And they shall perish thereby together with their possessions; And with all their glory and their splendor, And in shame and in slaughter and in great destitution, Their spirits shall be cast into the furnace of fire.

Rye: A cereal grain with less gluten than wheat, the rye berry can be boiled whole or used in cereals in the rolled form, like oats. You can coarsely grind it in a blender and then soak it and use it to give a nice flavor to coarse breads and crackers. Sorghum: Hearty, chewy sorghum doesn’t have an inedible hull so you can eat it with all its outer layers, thereby retaining the majority of its nutrients. Use it in its whole grain form as an addition to vegetable salads or cooked dishes. It has a mild flavor that won’t compete with the delicate flavors of other food ingredients. For best results, soak it in water overnight, then cook it for about an hour. Teff: Tiny, whole grain teff has been a staple of Ethiopian cooking for thousands of years. It is the smallest grain in the world; about 100 grains are the size of a kernel of wheat. It has a mild, nutty flavor, cooks quickly, and is a good source of calcium and iron. Serve it with fruit and cinnamon for a hot breakfast cereal or add it to stews, baked goods, or veggie burgers.

By gradually introducing small amounts of Italian food into the diet of an Ethiopian adult, the psychiatrists are exploiting precisely those crossed wires which are buried deeply in the associative processes of the patient who has a desperate subconscious need to eat and enjoy Italian cuisine, thereby correspondingly revivifying his or her own sense of self-worth.

You would fancy any man who gave you baklava," I tease. "You think I am some kind of sharmuta for sweets?