Culture

Ethiopia

Ethiopia is truly a Land of discovery - brilliant and beautiful, secretive, mysterious and extraordinary. Above all things, it is a country of great antiquity, with a culture and traditions dating back more than 3,000 years. The traveler in Ethiopia makes a journey through time, transported by beautiful monuments and the ruins of edifices built long centuries ago. When you eat Ethiopian food, you become emerged into an entire new world.

With over 80 languages and even more ethnicities, Ethiopia is truly a diverse country. The main languages spoken are Amharic, Oromo, and Tigray, Somali and many others. Diversity isn’t limited to just the people, the land itself consist of many different geographic features such as low-lying deserts mountain highlands, volcanic plateaus, wide savanna’s, and tropical rainforests

Ethiopia is located in east Africa and is referred to as “The Horn of Africa”. Ethiopia is otherwise known as the beginning of civilizations due to the oldest evidence of human remains being found here. It’s also a symbol of freedom by being the only Africa nation not colonized by a European power…. ELELELELEE

Highlights

Buna Time

For hundreds of years, Ethiopia has provided some of the world's best reviewed single origin premium coffee beans. In general, Ethiopian coffees are best known for their complexity with a pungent, winey quality and a distinct wildness in their acidity.

The Ethiopian Coffee ceremony is practiced both by those from Ethiopia and those from Eritrea. The coffee ceremony is the ritual of making and serving drinking coffee. Usually, this ceremony will take place in honor of guests coming to visit. The ceremony is also performed on a regular basis as a normal part of daily life, inviting family and friends over for regular company. These ceremonies of daily life happen up to three times per day, at each meal time, and involve about three hours worth of time per ceremony.

Someone Say Gursha?

The East African ceremony of Gursha is the practice of feeding another by placing, with one’s hand, a bite of sumptuous, spicy food–wrapped in the East African bread called injera–gently in the mouth of another. It is an intimate act of friendship or of love practiced in Eritrea and Ethiopia, East Africa. The practice is a bit of a culture shock for Westerners accustomed to eating from separate plates with sterile forks and spoons. The ceremony defies every social norm in the West around personal space, eating with one’s hands, and much more, placing food in the mouth of another—touching both the food and the one being served.

It is instructive of a different way of being in relationship. It enhances the notion of relational presence as a way of bringing the sacred into ordinary life and ceremony as a rich exemplifier of

The Mighty Injera

It’s a sourdough flatbread unlike any other sourdough. It starts out looking like a crepe but then develops a unique porous and slightly spongy texture. The thin batter is poured onto the cooking surface, traditionally a clay plate over a fire though now more commonly a specialized electric injera stove, and the bottom remains smooth while the top develops lots of pores which makes it ideal for scooping up stews and sauces.

Injera is traditionally made out of teff flour, the world’s tiniest grain and also one of the earliest domesticated plants having originated in Ethiopia and Eritrea (where injera is also widely consumed) between 4000 and 1000 BC. As such, many will replace some of the teff content with other flours like barley or wheat.

Ethiopian Food 101

Ethiopian food and etiquettes can be difficult to navigate but with these short videos it will show you the dos and don't when it comes to Ethiopian cuisine!

Here's how to enjoy Ethiopian food like a true Ethiopian

Heres How Not To Eat Ethiopian Food

Gursha 101 On Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown

Simpsons Try Injera