Eshet Injera Photo credit: Lloyd Wolf
Location: 829 Kennedy St NW, Washington, DC 20011
The Eshet Injera restaurant is named in part for injera.
“Injera is not only a kind of bread—it’s also an eating utensil. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, this spongy, sour flatbread is used to scoop up meat and vegetable stews. Injera also lines the tray on which the stews are served, soaking up their juices as the meal progresses. When this edible tablecloth is eaten, the meal is officially over. Injera is made with teff, a tiny, round grain that flourishes in the highlands of Ethiopia. While teff is very nutritious, it contains practically no gluten. This makes teff ill-suited for making raised bread, however injera still takes advantage of the special properties of yeast. A short period of fermentation gives it an airy, bubbly texture, and also a slightly sour taste.” http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/bread/recipe-injera.html
“Injera starts with teff, a grass that grows in western Eritrea and Sudan and the highlands of Ethiopia, according to Mesob Across America: Ethiopian Food in the USA, a book on Ethiopian restaurants in America. Scholars believed that the people there may have cultivated teff more than 5,000 years ago and historical digs found early examples of mitads around 500 to 600 AD. Injera is a household staple in Ethiopian households, served on large sharing platters and topped with wat (meat and vegetable stews) or ripped into pieces and stir-fried to make a breakfast dish called fir-fir” (https://www.thestar.com).
Photo: Wikimedia commons
Resources
“Ethiopian Injera,” Exploratorium. https://www.exploratorium.edu/ Accessed 9/5/20.
Liu, Karen. “Ethiopian Injera a Tradition that Spans Thousands of Years.” The Star. 10/23/18 https://www.thestar.com. Accessed 9/5/2020.
Wax, Emily. “As Americans Embrace Ethiopian Cuisine, its Farmers Grow More Teff.” The Washington Post. 7/29/12. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ Accessed 9/7/20.