Week #1: Ethiopian

... So as I was saying a couple of days ago, I'm spending the next year eating my way around the world without leaving home, or at least without pulling out my passport. I don't have to, because immigrants have brought with them one of their greatest treasures--the foods they miss. Being an immigrant from Tennessee, I certainly understand this need for a taste of home: I've had my share of dry-rubbed pork ribs FedEx'd from Memphis; I've lovingly collected a coffee can full of bacon drippings for the flavor they bring to all kinds of foods, including the cornbread I make in the well-seasoned iron skillet that's older than Himself and me combined; and every trip home I crowd my luggage with hog jowls, bacon, ham and cracklins, as you've no doubt read about in this blog.

It's intriguing to discover the cuisines that are available in your own town, whether the population is 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, 1 million or more. Food comes with stories, history, human drama, religion, geography...you name it.

I'm starting in Ethiopia, where the food traditions are strong in spite of the scarcity there of food itself. Himself and I headed to Nyala in Los Angeles' Little Ethiopia to satisfy our craving for some wonderfully savory fare.
We ordered a combination of vegetarian and meat platters, so we could try a bit of everything. Ethiopia has large populations of Coptic Christians and Muslims, along with some Jews, so there is no pork in their culinary repertoire. And with the many fasting days dictated by the Coptic Church, the cuisine features a lot of vegetarian dishes. I appreciate that they serve both--I don't mind vegetarian entrées if I know meat is still available. And when the veggies are so creatively and aggressively seasoned, I don't miss the meat at all. But we weren't going to turn our noses up at the beef, chicken and lamb. The vegetarian platter included collards (yes, my Southern brethren and sistren, those gnarly greens came from Africa), a mixture of vegetables and three types of lentils, along with a bit of salad (was that a holdover from Italian colonialism, I wonder?).

The lentils and meats were each made into a rich stew known as wot. They were spicy and flavorful, with varying degrees of heat. All the lentil stews were cooked with garlic and ginger, with the yellow lentils being mildest. The red lentils were seasoned with a sauce called berbere, a combination of spices and several varieties of reallllly hot chilis. The meats were cooked in butter and seasoned with onion, garlic, ginger, the chicken with lemon juice and the lamb and beef with red wine. And goosed with enough berbere to keep them interesting.
All of this food was served on top of a large crepe-like bread called injera, a staple of Ethiopian cuisine. It's made of teff, a minuscule grain that produces a thin, spongy bread with a sourdough flavor. Injera is the great multitasker of the Ethiopian meal, serving as the plate, the utensil and the bread. In some cases, the entire table is covered with injera in place of a tablecloth (just not in L.A., where the health department would no doubt have something to say about it!). I love eating with injera: it's so satisfying to experience food this way, much more tactile and intimate than when it moves between plate and mouth on a fork or between a pair of chopsticks.

The best injera was the piece lining the tray. By the time we polished off our basket of injera and most of the food on the tray, what was left was the layer of injera into which the juices of our meal had soaked, messy but oh-so satisfying.

Our end-of-the meal Ethiopian coffee tray arrived with a piece of red-hot charcoal bearing a lump of frankincense, which created a warm and heady aroma (it's probably a good thing we opted for water over Ethiopian wine or beer, or we might have fallen asleep right where we sat). The coffee, brewed in this small pot called a jabana, was rich and commanding.

The restaurant was resplendent with its colorful artwork and artifacts. The music and incense helped complete the illusion that we were on the Horn of Africa, not a stone's throw away from the Beverly Center.

Don't Say They Didn't Warn You!

On our way into a restaurant today we spotted this notice--let's call it a warning. You just can't be too careful about what you eat. Neither can you be too careful about what you serve or how you present that option to the public.

We opted for sandwiches, just to be on the safe side.

Hand-Wringing Over Neck-Wringing

One of my favorite cookbooks is New Orleans Recipes, a wee tome originally published in the 1930s. While the book contains authentic Creole recipes, it also reflects a distinctly different sensibility, complete with cringe-inducing, Aunt Jemima-type cover art and a way of preparing food that’s quite removed from today’s comestibles that too often are: 1. heat-and-eat 2. dump-into-a-bowl-and-stir-in-a-cup-of-water or 3. pick-up-at-a-drive-through-window-from-a-surly-teen.

The cooking fat in this book is typically lard, and as for precision of measurement, you’re instructed to “get a knob of lard about the size of a walnut.” Occasionally it will tell you to fry something “in a heaping tablespoon of butter.” A chicken recipe will tell you to go out and get a chicken that weighs about two or three pounds, and of course, that means stepping out your door and selecting the appropriate chicken from amongst those pecking around in your yard--and killing and cleaning it--before you ever get started on the recipe. (It goes without saying that dieters and vegans were not considered a part of the cookbook-buying public in those days.)

This was a reality of my mother’s growing up years in the country, but since she helped my grandfather with the farm chores, my grandmother was the one who always took care of chicken detail. My mother knew this was something she should learn to do, too. So one afternoon she attempted to dispatch a chicken using the same fling-n-twist action she’d seem my grandmother perform. Unfortunately, she succeeded only in tearing the skin away from the neck, so that it pulled down over the chicken’s head. Then she lost her grip, and the chicken got away from her and raced blindly around the yard, as if it had a turtleneck sweater pulled over its head. Finally, my grandmother had to run out and catch it and put it out of its misery. (While my mother has always been willing and able to take on difficult chores, that remains one of the few times she has ever attempted to wring a chicken’s neck.)

To the average cook these days, the most difficult part of preparing chicken is buying a whole one and having to break it down. (Of course, with rising food prices, it’s a skill that can save you some money.) Largely, we’re spared such chores, so most everyone forgets that dinner started out as a sentient being, minding its own business in the farm yard. It’s much easier to eat meat when you don’t do battle with it first.

Not that I want to slaughter every piece of meat I set about to eat, but having spent my early years witnessing the cycle of life and death on the farm makes me appreciate it all the more. One thing I hate most is having to toss out meat that I’ve left in the fridge too long. It seems disrespectful to the animal it came from.

There are some who see any meat consumption as inherently disrespectful of the animal, but I agree with Fergus Henderson, Tony Bourdain and all the other chefs who talk about respect for the living thing that died so you could eat: The best way to show your regard for these critters who are raised to feed us is to take full advantage of all they have to offer. That’s what Fergus’ nose-to-tail cooking and eating is all about.

And as for that neck-wringing business, I'd say those chickens lived a pretty fine life pecking and scratching around on the farm up until that final moment, and in the hands of my grandmother, the pro, the end was quick and merciful.