Injera (Amharic: ?n?ära ???? [?nd??ra]; sometimes transliterated as enjera; or "taita"; Tigrinya: ???; Somali: Canjeero) is a sourdough-risen flatbread with a slightly spongy texture. Traditionally made out of teff flour, it is the national dish of Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. It is central to the dining process in those cultures as bread is the most fundamental component of any meal. While originally specific to Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa, Jews migrating from that region have spread injera to Israel.
Video Injera
Preparation
Injera is usually made from tiny, iron-rich teff. Teff production is limited to certain middle elevations with adequate rainfall making it relatively expensive for the average household. As many farmers in the Ethiopian highlands grow their own subsistence grains, wheat, barley, corn, or rice flour are sometimes used to replace some or all of the teff content. Teff flour is gluten free, so there is greater demand for injera that is made only with teff flour. There are also different varieties of injera in Ethiopia, such as tekore (black), nech (white), and sergegna (mixed).
To make injera, teff flour is mixed with water and allowed to ferment for several days, as with a sourdough starter. As a result of this fermentation, injera has a mildly sour taste. The injera is then ready to be baked into large, flat pancakes. The dough's viscosity allows it to be poured onto the baking surface, rather than rolled out, which is unusual for a yeast or sourdough bread.
In terms of shape, injera compares to the French crêpe and the Indian dosa as a flatbread cooked in a circle and used as a base for other foods. The taste and texture, however, are unlike the crêpe and dosa, and more similar to the South Indian appam. The bottom surface of the injera, which touches the heating surface, will have a relatively smooth texture, while the top will become porous. This porous structure allows the injera to be a good bread for scooping up sauces and dishes.
Ingredients
Traditionally, injera is made with Eragrostis tef, also known as teff, an ancient grain from the highlands of Ethiopia. In order to understand the origin of injera, one could look to the origin of the grain grown to make it, but there is little written or known about teff's origin. There is no scholarly consensus, but some have stated that the production of teff dates back as far as 4000 BC. When teff is not available, either in Ethiopia or outside the country, injera can be made by fermenting a variety of different grains. Injera has been known to be made with barley, millet, and sorghum when teff is not available, usually because of location or financial limitations. Ideally, injera is always made with teff.
Cooking method
The cooking method for injera has changed little since its origin. The concept is the same: the grain is mixed with water and fermented for a period of time which may vary depending on which grain is being used. Traditionally, those are the only two ingredients, and the mixture is thinly laid onto a giant circular griddle, or mitad, which has been found at archaeological sites dating back as far as 600 AD. A mitad today does not necessarily have to be made out of clay, but it is still a large circular griddle on which the injera mixture is baked.
Baking surface
Baking is done either on a specialized electric stove or, more traditionally, on a large black clay plate over a fire. This set-up uses a griddle called a mitad (???) (in Amharic) or mogogo (???) (in Tigrinya).
The clay plate can be difficult to use, produce large amounts of smoke, and be dangerous to children. This inefficient cooking method wastes much of the area's limited fuel resources. However, in 2003, an Eritrean research group designed a stove which uses available fuel sources (including dung, locally called kubet) for cooking injera and other foods efficiently, saving the heat from the fuel. This new fuel source paired well with the new type of stove. Several parts of this new stove are made in the central cities of Ethiopia and Eritrea while other parts are molded from clay by women in local areas.
Many women in urban areas now use electric injera stoves, which are topped with a large metal plate. In the United States, injera is most often made on an electric Bethany lefse grill, now marketed as "Heritage grill".
Maps Injera
Consumption and contemporary use
In Ethiopia and Eritrea, a variety of stews, salads (during Ethiopian Orthodox fasting, for which believers abstain from most animal products), and more injera (called injera firfir) are placed on the injera for serving. Using one's hand (traditionally only the right one), small pieces of injera are torn and used to grasp the stews and salads for eating. The injera under these stews soaks up the juices and flavors of the foods, and after the stews and salads are gone, this bread is also consumed. Injera is thus simultaneously food, eating utensil, and plate. When the entire "tablecloth" of injera is gone, the meal is over.
In Ethiopia and Eritrea, injera is eaten daily in virtually every household. Outside of the Horn of Africa and Israel, injera may be found in grocery stores and restaurants specializing in Ethiopian, Somali, and Eritrean cooking.
Injera, as previously mentioned, is the most important component of any Ethiopian meal. It is often both the serving platter and utensil for a meal. Hearty stews such as wat are placed on top of the bread and then the meal is eaten by tearing pieces of injera off and scooping up the stews. While injera's literal use as the base and staple of any Ethiopian meal has not changed since its creation, its symbolic value has changed. Different varieties of injera can be found in the highlands vs. lowlands of Ethiopia. In the lowlands, injera is often made with sorghum and in the highlands it is more commonly made with barley. Either way, because it is made with something other than teff, its symbolic value has already decreased compared to the symbolic value of injera made with teff. There are symbolic value differences with types of teff as well. White-grained teff is more expensive to buy and thus symbolizes a higher status than its cheaper counterpart, red-grained teff.
Variations
There are similar variants to injera in other East African countries like Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan. The variant eaten in Somalia and Djibouti is called Canjeero or Laxox, the variant eaten in South Sudan and Sudan is known as kisra. In Somalia, at lunch (referred to as Qaddo), the main meal of the day, injera (known as Canjeero) might also be eaten with a stew (Maraq) or soup. Canjeero, the Somali and the Djiboutian version of injera, is a staple of Somali and Djiboutian cuisine.
Outside Ethiopia and Eritrea
United States
Homeland Security's 2008 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics shows that before 1930, there were no Ethiopians in the United States with legal, permanent resident status, and there was a massive spike in numbers between the 1980s and 1990s. This is largely because the Refugee Act was passed in 1980. While that does not give specific detail as to the appearance of injera in Chicago specifically, it does give a starting time frame for when it was possibly appearing- no earlier than the 1980s.
Teff is now being produced in the United States by the Teff Company in Idaho, making teff more accessible to expatriate Ethiopians.
See also
References
Further reading
- The Deep Dish on Chicago Ethiopian Companion website to Kloman's book: Mesob Across America
- Injera's Journey To Chicago The Red Fork, Chicago food blog entry
- Here, Eat This: A Beginner's Guide to Ethiopian Food A Houston Press article that outlines all the basics for Ethiopian cuisine
- Crang, Philip; Cook, Ian (1996). "The World on a Plate: Culinary Culture, Displacement and Geographical Knowledges". Journal of Material Culture. 1 (2): 131-156. doi:10.1177/135918359600100201.
- de Solier, Isabelle. Food and the Self: Consumption, Production, and Material Culture. Bloomsbury Academic. 2013
External links
- Mesob Across America: Ethiopian Food in the U.S.A. A book about the history and culture of Ethiopian cuisine
- Ethiopian Food: Mesob Across America A blog about Ethiopian food
- Ethiopian Restaurant Guide Includes video visits to some restaurants
- Ashden awards: Local construction of efficient stoves
Source of article : Wikipedia
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