Friday Night & Ethiopian Food

Last night we met up with the Cowle family, also adopting from Ethiopia, at a local Ethiopian restaurant.  We have known the Cowles a little over a year.  Their oldest was in the same kindergarten class as AB and their youngest is the same age as BB.  And, the coolest thing is that they literally live about 6 houses from us.  What a blessing it is that we can go on this journey together and that our kids can grow up together.
 
Well none of us had ever eaten Ethiopian food before, so we had no idea of what to expect or what to order.  I had heard that it was spicy, but that was it.  Our waitress, which of course was Ethiopian, helped by giving a little instruction and basically told us what we should order.  She said that all of the dishes were authentic.  Her mother was the cook and had all the spices shipped.

 

Ethiopians break bread (injera) at every meal where they share food from a common plate.  Their food mostly consists of spicy vegtables and meat dishes usually in form of a thick stew served on top of injera.  Injera is is a large sourdough flatbread.  All of this will come out on one large plate, and since they do not use utensils, people take turns tearing off a piece of bread with the toppings. 

  

 

Traditionally, the large common plate is placed in the middle under this straw top. Then there is a bowl where everyone washes their hands, and then they eat.  This picture was from the restaurant, but we ate at a regular table.  It made more sense with the kiddos.

 

We all enjoyed the experience, but we all left feeling pretty hungry.  Before we went, we talked with AB and BB about trying the foods, and we that we would be using our fingers and not utensils.  AB thought that was gross, and BB thought that was cool.  We told them that it was okay not to like the foods but that they shouldn't say "yuck or gross".  I just visualized us being the only white people in the place with our kids yelling yuck and gross.  Luckily, that didn't happen.  It was good for the girls to experience what their little brother is accustomed to.  That way when he turns his nose up to french fries, I can remind them and myself that he is just not used to American prepared food, and that is totally fine.  I'll just have to make a couple runs to the restaurant to load up on injera :)

The food was spicy and the taste was definately different than anything I have had before.  I liked several of the vegtable sides, but didn't really take to the meat sides.  Most everyone felt the same way.  I did make the mistake of thinking that the injera would be like a tortilla.  It wasn't!!!!  It has a totally different texture and taste.  I really didn't like it, which posed a pretty big problem.  The injera is how you get the sides to your mouth.   I ended up holding 2 pieces of injera together as a spoon to eat the sides.

I was so proud of the girls.  They tried many of the sides, and for a child, that was pretty impressive.  Not only did it smell different, but it looked very different.  I'm sure we provided more than a few laughs to the other folks there and to those running the place. Even though no one really liked the food, it was a great time!!