Firstly, just a quick update on myself, before I get on to the proper subject of this post, the food in Ethiopia! I have had a fairly quiet week, things feel like they are starting to wrap up a bit, I am nearly at the end of my elective, but, I still have 9 more days here, so am sure to have many more interesting and incredible adventures before I head back to, what I’ve heard, is a rather damp England. I also did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge earlier, after being nominated by both Phil, my housemate in Southampton and my obviously loving mum, I will post it up if I can. But, on to the main subject…
As I said in my post before, food is cheap in Ethiopia, for a foreigner like myself. However, when you compare it to the salaries of people here, I am fairly sure that it works out as more of a financial burden upon them, than it does upon me. Yes, I can’t afford to shop in Waitrose, but all in all you can get all the basic food items in the UK for very cheap. This post isn’t about the cost though, it’s about the type of food, and the differences to back home. One thing that you would immediately notice, is that there is no ‘supermarket’ as such, no one place to go and get all your food items you need. I went out today to get some oil, eggs and bread, but had to go to 3 separate places to get them. It’s not necessarily annoying, as the shops are all small and in close proximity, just something you notice, when comparing Ethiopia with the UK. The bread is good here, it states just like a bakery loaf of bread back home, but you may have to try a few places out before you find one that you like. The bread from the smaller supermarkets can be a bit strange, to me at least. Almost a mix of what I know as bread, and a brioche. For me, it’s not a great combination. All the basic items are available at many of the supermarkets across town, bread, eggs, fruit, vegetables etc etc. Most supermarkets also sell a few varieties of biscuits and chocolates, but comparatively, these are rather expensive. A bonus if you’re looking to eat healthily!
There are also many options for eating out where I am staying, ranging from what I would imagine is kind of like an American ‘diner’ sort of place, to big restaurants and resorts. The town is a resort town after all, with many lakes and what I assume is a popular tourism business. Most of the menus follow the same sort of general items, with some places not doing certain things but offering food that is not as common in the other places. Everywhere you eat though, there will be a full range of sandwiches… or as they are better known as, burgers. Everywhere will do a burger, cheese burger, special burger, extra special burger… the list is endless. As well as this, I have pretty much not found a place yet that doesn’t offer spaghetti or rice with a choice of sauces, the most common being tomato, vegetable, meat for example, or some type of scrambled egg dish or egg sandwich. Most places also do salads, but not all, and I have been careful only to eat salad at more ‘upmarket’ places, as I don’t want a repeat of the 2nd week of my trip! ON top of these basic items, the more price restaurants will offer a range of meats, such as steak and fried chicken. I have also found places that serve pizzas, spring rolls (kind of more like pancakes rolled up than what I know to be spring rolls…) and lasagne, but these are less common.
That’s the more ‘European’ food round up, and it is widely available. However, one thing that you can definitely get everywhere, is injera. Injera is a funny one to me, at first I didn’t like it at all, but it has warmed on me. It is the national dish of Ethiopia, and rather hard to explain, but I will try. It is kind of like a sour pancake. Very basic, but the staple of a lot off dishes. It will served with a topping on top, which range from a spicy chickpea dish, which I love, other vegetable based dishes, such as potatos, carrots to name just a couple, and very many meet based dishes. I struggle with the language still, but from what I can work out most places do chicken and beef based meat toppings, as well the occasional different meat, such as Ox (I think…). The whole idea of injera however, is to use it to eat the topping, there is no knife and fork involved. You rip a bit off, use it to grab a load of topping, and eat it like that. Or, as is quite common in Ethiopian culture, you feed someone else. This was a very strange concept to me at first, and it took a while to get out of the habit of trying to take the food off someone else with my hands, but once used to it, it is a seemingly very polite gesture. As you can imagine, eating injera is messy work, especially for someone like me, who has not grown up eating like that. I have slowly got better, and as I have, been able to get more filling with less injera, which is a much better way to do it, and tastes a hell of a lot better. A lot of injera dishes are also served with a red spice. I’m still unsure what it is exactly, but I do know one thing, it’s hot! And that is another tendency of Ethiopian food actually, there’s chilli’s in everything, and they also tend to serve a lot of the non-Ethiopian dishes with a side of bread. I find this quite weird sometimes, when you’ve stuffed yourself with carbohydrate rich pasta, and also have a carbohydrate side of bread. Quite often they are rolls, and I just pop them in my bag for breakfast the next day!
I have mentioned coffee and tea in a previous post, but just to reiterate, there is A LOT of places you can get coffee. Standing on the main road, you could probably pick out 15-20 places without moving from one spot. It is served in a small cup, with quite a fair amount of sugar, and is quite honestly, brilliant. One other thing that is great out here, is the juice. Most restaurants serve juice, and there also other places that sell juices only. You can get a range of fruits, mango, papaya, pineapple, avocado, guava and strawberry (sometimes). You can ask for any mix of whatever the particular place has, or have just one on its own. It’s served in a massive glass, and is usually accompanied by a lime to squeeze and mix in. There is also one place I have found who have took it to the next level, with strawberry, banana, ice cream and chocolate dusting, but that may be taking away a bit from the fact that on the whole, these can actually do me for a very healthy lunch. Especially if they have avocado in them, as it is much more thick and filling.4
I’ve gone on quite a bit, I realise, so will stop now. I am sure that I have summarised the food nearly well enough, and have not tried all that much of it myself, so am guilty in that department. However, if anyone is interested and wants to ask questions about what I have written, please feel free, and I will respond when I can!
Tom
Mediccyclist 