saturday

The preferred staple in the Ethiopian and Eritrean diet is engera (pronounced en-jer-a, and sometimes spelled injera), a flat sour-like fermented pancake that is used with "wot", a stew made with spices, meats and pulses, such as lentils, beans and split peas. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, teff is the most common cereal crop used to make engera. Teff is a tiny, round, khaki-colored grain closely resembling millet. Its scientific name is Eragrostis, teff. "Teffa", the Amharic word for "lost", is so named because of teff's small size. It is the smallest grain in the world and often is lost in the harvesting and threshing process because of its size. [ teff ]
Teff is the staple grain of Ethiopia. The grain yields a seed much smaller than the size of a wheat grain, but is the basis of Ethiopian traditional cookery. Teff flour is the main ingredient of the pleasantly sour pancakelike bread known as injera, which literally underlies every Ethiopian meal.

To set an Ethiopian table, one lays down a circular injera on top of which the other food is arrayed, directly, without any plate. Other injeras are served on the side and torn into pieces to be used as grabbers for the food on the "tablecloth" injera. Eventually, after the meal is finished, you eat the tablecloth, a delicious repository of the juices from the food that has been resting on it.

Nutrition-minded Americans have turned to teff as a source of calcium, fiber, and protein. It is also an alternative grain for people allergic to the gluten in wheat. It has an appealing, sweet, molasses-like flavor, and it boils up into a gelatinous porridge. INJERA

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