Artist on a Quest in Abyssinia: mmm food!... oh help, where's the toilet?!

Curry for breakfast, anyone? The Ethiopians have a highly developed food-culture, which is centred around the central concepts of Cake, Coffee, Curry, and.... floppy bathmats.
There appears to me, as a visitor to the country, to be no major food shortage- certainly not in the areas I have been, and nothing that matches the alarming reports in the media I encountered before I arrived here. There has been talk about 'the drought', as the rains have come very late this year (though they're in full force now- believe me!) and that means there will be food shortages ahead, but it seems to be the rising price of grain in the markets that is causing genuine alarm and anger in the markets here. This is not caused by the drought, but is a factor of the rising food prices that are being felt worldwide, that seem to be related to the price of oil and to worldwide markets. The ethiopian staple grain, tef, has risen in price by 300%, and this means many ordinary people cannot afford bread.
The bread made from tef is called injeera, and it is this staple they consume with baffling relish at breakfast, lunch and dinner, that has the alarming consistency of the aforementioned bathmat. Eating traditional Ethiopian fare is a bit of a lottery. When I first dipped my tastebud-toes into these dark culinary waters I was presented with a menu covered in squiggles. This was to be expected- the ethiopian alphabet consists of around 250 charactersd that all look a bit like little dancing stickmen. The 'english' version was barely any more illuminating: Shiro, Tibs, Kitfo... the list of potential poisons went on. I chose a couple that seemed to have nice-sounding names. When I ordered, the waitress asked me, in a slightly worrying way, "cooked or uncooked?" "ummm... Cooked?" At least she asked. The food arrived on a huge round metal dish, about 20 inches in diameter, which seemed to be covered in a light brown cloth or flannel. There were various pastes and curry-type portions heaped onto the flannel in several discrete mounds, and there were 2 more flannels rolled up also on the plate. There were no cutlery. As I looked around the restaurant it seemed the done thing to rip up the flannel, grasp some curry-type stuff with it and pop the whole bundle into one's gob. The flannel, as i'm sure you've guessed was the injeera 'bread'. It's taste was only mildly less offensive than its texture, being sour and slightly zesty, and the texture... well, Paul Theroux describes it in his book Dark Star Safari as like chewing on a spongy thin bathmat. I would have to concur with this description, although i haven't actually tried the bathmat yet. The whole package is reasonable- the hot beri-beri powder that you sprinkle on your meat n sauce tends to obliterate the sourness of the injeera, and the whole thing gets washed down by some very agreeable St George beer ( at about 40p a bottle- it really is very agreeable!) The experience is definitely improved my much chop-smacking and lip-icking, as i have discovered by observing the local ways. I am busy practising my eating-noises in order to fit in. Finally the meal would not be complete so it seems, without some loony ethiopians dancing about in traditional costume accompanied by some very loud cheery-synth music and some guy singing very melodramatically into a reverb-laden mic. I thought this was just for the tourists at first, but i've been to many places where i am the only faranji in sight, and still they dance- and the locals love it!The music is very perky, and the dancing is even more so, with lots of grinning, jaunty leg-kicking and jerky shoulder thrusting. It's so energetic in fact, that eeven if you've managed to keep the injeera down, following their moves too closely could result in a serious feeling of nausea. The strange thing is, that (apart from the dancing) this strange way of doing food is great for breakfast, lunch and tea. I only tried it for breakfast once- i think when i was doing the rock-churches i the mountains. It was pretty good actually! Most of the time i have been fine with the food, but more recently I have bee really quite ill after partaking in the injeera- and i don't think it was to do with the dancing. So now I am trying to hold it together by eating more western-type food. They are pretty big on pasta and italian-style food, so it's pretty easy to a decent bowl of spaghetti, or a piza (a bit of a life-saver for my poor gut at the moment!). The other unexpected aspect of the ethiopian culinary experience is the cakes. There are zillions of cafes with loads of gateaux, sponge-cakes, pastries and freshly baked biscuits. Yum! These go particularly wel with the amazing coffee. Sometimes a place will put on a coffee ceremony. This is basically where they roast the beans and brew you a cup from scratch using simple stoves and metalpots. It tastes amazing. One of the parts of the ritual is that they pesent you with the pan of beans just after roasting, so that you may smell the beautiful aroma- not in order to grab a hanful of the roasty toasty beans and cram them into your mouth- as i did. Oops.

So food here is pretty good- drink even more so- i just hope my gut holds out until i get back. Hygiene isn't amazing here. It's a very dirty place generally ( i got caked in mud yesterday just walking about the market) and there seems to be a helluva lot of nose-picking. In fact it seems to be perfectly acceptable to this in the middle of a convesation with a relative stranger (me), and i have seen many a waitress having a good pick and roll after serving me my dinner. Lovely!