An Age-Old Question Finally Answered - "Little Ethiopia", Washington, D.C.

My interest in Ethiopia began in 2^nd grade, and I’ll give you four reasons why - Dawit, Samson, Habtom, and Marhawit.

The three Ethiopian brothers and their curly-haired little sister were enrolled in my school in October or November of 1986.  As the principal escorted them through the halls, introducing them to teachers and all of us students, the little wheels of nosiness inside my 8-year-old brain began turning at rapid speed. I wanted to know - nope, I NEEDED to know everything about them and their country. What was life like in Ethiopia? Why do you have an accent? Do you still have family there? What does Ethiopian food tastes like?

Samson was in my class. He, along with his siblings, answered a few of the questions on my “find out” list, but they were mainly interested in reading, playing kickball and sharing jokes and laughs– not being interrogated by a pint-sized Oprah Winfrey.

Three years later, the family moved away from Memphis, and I never heard from them again.

Even though they left, my desire to find out more about their country did not.

In the decades since then, I've found general information about Ethiopia and its people in books and on the Internet.

However, one thing words can’t satisfy is taste. I still NEEDED to find out how Ethiopian food tastes, and I didn't want to go into some random restaurant and spend money on foods I couldn't identify or pronounce. So, I signed up for the “Little Ethiopia Food Tour” in Washington, D.C. (D.C., which is about 2 hours north of my home in Richmond, has the largest Ethiopian community outside of Ethiopia.)

The tour is sponsored by DC Metro Food Tours, and it guides adventurous eaters inside four Ethiopian restaurants in and around “Little Ethiopia”. (“Little Ethiopia” is unofficial name for the area around U and 9^th Streets in northwest D.C.) 

Zenebech Injera Restaurant was the 2nd stop of
the "Little Ethiopia Food Tour". The bulk of injera throughout
the city is made at this family-owned restaurant.

I joined eight other people - including a 2 ½ year old - to sample some of the East African country’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert dishes. We walked and ate for about 3 ½ hours, as our tour guide, Christian, introduced us to the food, the ingredients used to prepare it, as well as the authentic, utensil-free style of eating it.

We sampled everything from kinche’ (cracked wheat) and Doro Wat (chicken stew), to a spicy bean dish called foul (pronounced “fool”) and crunchy sambusas (fried pastry filled with vegetables). And that was just within the first two stops of the tour! Everything was so tasty and light, yet filling (but not so filling to where I needed to go home and slip on my pair of “good eatin’ pants” with the elastic waist.)

The vegetarian platter is filled with split peas, lentils,
collard greens, tomatoes, cabbage, foul (pronounced "fool"),
and plenty of injera. Delicious!

We ate most of the dishes with the help of a spongy flatbread called injera. I think out of everything I tasted, this intrigued me the most. The texture of the bread was soft and fluffy, yet strong enough to scoop up vegetables and meats. However, injera is quite tasty alone. I should know. I kept tearing off pieces of it and shoveling them into my mouth like they were M&Ms; I just like how it felt on my tongue. (I know that sounds weird, but try it. You’ll see what I mean.) I gnawed on injera so much that I hoped no one noticed how much I was eating. Then I thought, “Who cares? I’m on a food tour”, and proceeded to ask a restaurant worker if I could get injera “to go”. The icing on the cake came when I found out it is nutritious. Winning!

Italy tried to colonize Ethiopia, but failed. However, you can find
a few Italian dishes on Ethiopian food menus. You can also
hear a few Italian words sprinkled throughout Ethiopians' Amharic
language.

Speaking of cake, it wasn’t on the menu for the tour, but tiramisu was. The Italian dessert is common in Ethiopia because at one time, Italy occupied the country, and tiramisu was just one of the tasty influences left behind.

My fellow eaters and I were also treated to a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, part of which allows guests to sit back and appreciate the preparation and the smell of it before tasting it. Coffee is a big deal in Ethiopia because that is where the coffee bean was discovered more than 1000 years ago. Ethiopian coffee is considered one of the best in the world, and after one sip, I understood why. It has a “rich, refined” quality to it - something I haven’t found in other coffees. It was black, VERY strong, and delicious!

If you are invited to an Ethiopian coffee ceremony,  consider yourself lucky.
It is the ultimate form of hospitality.

The tour was a learning experience – not only in cuisine, but also in Ethiopian and Ethiopian-American history.

More importantly, after more than 20 years, the tour allowed me to put a burning question to rest.

I finally know how Ethiopian food tastes, and based on the multiple helpings I had of every dish, I love it!

All I need to do now is find Dawit, Samson, Habtom, and Marhawit to let them know that every question I ever had about Ethiopia  has now been answered…

To find out more about DC Metro Food Tours, log on to www.dcmetrofoodtours.com , or call 202- 683-8847.