Injera FAQ: Why the Bread Has Eyes — Epoche B1
Injera: the questions visitors ask What is injera made of? Teff, the smallest grain of any cereal crop - one grain is well under a millimetre, and a handful holds thousands. Wheat and barley grow in Ethiopia too, but teff makes the injera on most tables, farmed in these highlands for thousands of years. Why is it sour? Because injera is fermented, not simply mixed and cooked. The teff flour and water stand in a covered basin for two or three days. What starts the change is ersho , a cloudy yellowish liquid saved from the last batch and poured into the new one - so each injera is a continuation of every batch the household has made before it. Over those days the batter bubbles and turns sharp. What are the little holes in the surface? They are called eyes. The fermented batter is full of gas, and when it is poured onto the hot clay plate - the mitad - the bubbles rise, burst at the surface, and leave hundreds of small open pores. Injera is cooked on one side only and never flipped; the top cooks in the steam under the lid, which is why the eyes stay open rather than pressed shut. Do the eyes matter, or are they decoration? They matter. At the table injera is plate and spoon at once: stews are set directly on it, and each person tears a piece and picks up food with it. Smooth bread would slide off the sauce; the open eyes grip it as a sponge grips water. A cook judges a batch by its eyes - even, open, edge to edge. Which part is eaten last? The piece under the stews, which has soaked all meal. Many quietly consider it the best part. References Mbiti, J. S. (1990). African Religions and Philosophy. Heinemann. Bochner, S. (1994). Culture Shock! Japan. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company.