This ancient country, old even before the time of Christ, is called the land of thirteen months of sunshine, (the Ethiopian calendar having twelve months of thirty days and an extra month of five days called Pagume). The climate is balmy and pleasant with rain falling rarely except in the summer months.
Here, where the Queen of Sheba once ruled, primitive and modern cultures exist side by side. In the villages, families live in "tukels" made of stone with thatched roofs, and life goes on today much as it has for centuries. In Addis Ababa, there are new white buildings of reinforced concrete in the midst of bustling, energetic people. Women with exquisite facial bone structure wear shamas, a gauzelike white fabric covering them from head to foot. Men wear either Ethiopian robes or Western dress.
The open-air market of Addis is the largest and most exciting in all of Africa. The market seems to stretch for miles. Everything is on display, from clothing and household wares to treadle sewing machines. And the food! Women sit cross-legged on the ground with tiny scales to measure spices for the Wat-the stews cooked in every home. Grains, called Tef, in huge bags are ready for the housewives who make Injera--the unleavened bread prepared today as it was a thousand years ago. The low stands are heaped with citrus fruits, bananas, grapes, pomegranates, figs, custard apples (a delectable tropical fruit), and vegetables of all kinds, including the wonderful red onion of this area and Gommen, a kale-like plant used in the Alechi: the stews of the fast days. The meats on sale are beef, lamb, and goat. You'll find a sort of rancid butter cut from a large block and sold in chunks wrapped in wax paper, along with lab, a soft cheese wrapped and kept cool in banana leaves.
The Coptic Church, the dominant religious sect in Ethiopia since the fourth century, dictates many food customs. There are fast days when meat is prohibited and pulses-lentils, peas, field peas, chick peas, and peanuts-are used in making the Wat and Alechi. No one is permitted to eat pork. The hand washing ceremony before and after meals is a religious ritual. Even the manner in which meats are prepared is dictated. The hottest, most peppery food in all of Africa is found in Ethiopia. The foreigner, not accustomed to the hot spice Ber-beri or Awaze, specially prepared with red pepper and containing as many as fifteen spices, cannot take it. But if you cut down on the pepper, you will find the food to be as interesting and exciting as anything you have ever eaten.
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