Ethiopia: Nightmare in Kitfo house
Friday, November 7th 2003
It’s my last evening, and I am in one of Bahir Dar’s less illustrious
bars.
You knew that when the table looked like it had been hacked into shape with
a panga [machete], and rusted milk powder tins substituted for ashtrays.
The ashtray on my table has a couple of yellowed molars among the cinders.
Healthy blokes these – not a cavity in them, they didn’t fall off because
of bad dental hygiene.
The bar is packed with wildly cheering Ethiopian drunks, crowded around the
solitary television set.
It’s the world athletics championship highlights – some women’s
long distance race, and the Ethiopian runner is laying the Kenyan runner to
waste.
I am tempted to cheer the Kenyan, but the dental artifacts in the tin-can point
to dire consequences if I do that.
That’s when Ato Yigzaw struts in.
Middle-aged, graying, dressed in one of those suits with Olympic-size padded
shoulders, the likes of which have not been seen since the days when mullet
hairstyles and communists ruled the planet.
He requests to sit at my table, the only one with free space.
His shifty-eyed
stooges pull the chair out for him.
The Ethiopian runner finally wins – the whole bar goes up in one giant
scream, and it’s not even a Live telecast.
The old geezer, Yigzaw now turns his attention to me –
Was I a tourist? How did I like the country? Where had I been? How were my folks
at home? Hope mommy was fine? And so on.
I give him the works.
That’s the beauty of Ethiopia – tell any poor innocent Ethiopian about how beautiful their country is, and cite a few important dates in Ethiopian history (Emperor Menelik defeating the invading Italians in 1898 is a universal favorite) – and soon, they are ready to fork over their life savings, and ply you with food and drinks. Despite my protests, the lackeys are sent off to get a few more rounds of beer.
I get to know a bit more about Ato Yigzaw – he is the regional distributor for the popular Bedele “monkey” beer. “I would like to invite you for dinner…” he tells me “…special Ethiopian dinner”
Ethiopian cuisine is probably the spiciest in Africa.
Folks here, have the ability to chew vast quantities of raw chilies without
batting an eyelid – enough to put any south Indian to shame.
My favorite dish was undoubtedly Key Wott – a kind of lamb stew
served in dynamite-hot berbera sauce. The stew is eaten along with traditional
staple injera: A flat bread, similar to a giant pancake or a Dosa –
but with a texture that lies somewhere between wet parchment and Styrofoam.
The meat stew is served on top of the centrally placed injera –
and everyone eats out of the same plate.
Soon, I am bundled into Mr.Yigzaw’s shiny Toyota pickup – the sidekicks
are ordered to ride in the back.
Where are we going?
“Kitfo house!!”
Kitfo house is a smashed up apartment block – the ground floor of which, serves as some kind of home-brewed gym – where people work out on wooden benches using bar-bells made out of rusted truck rims.
The restaurant is upstairs, in a dimly lit room with the lingering smell of
coffee, spices and death. A scruffy man in an apron greets us, bowing low, the
broom in his hand sweeping the floor -- he is the cook.
Classy place though – instead of the usual wall hangings, they have veritable
Turner prize nominees -- fresh carcasses strung up on the walls.
Ato Yigzaw scratches, sniffs and prods before selecting the winning corpse –
a particularly rotund looking bovine, which seems to be attracting the envy of all the
flies playing prom on it.
The meat is taken away to the kitchen for preparation.
What are we eating? I ask.
“Kitfo!” – and it sounds like a delicacy.
Or so, I thought.
The meat soon comes back in a bowl, accompanied by rolls of injera.
Its minced beef, all right – but raw, as in bloody raw, not even heated
to the slight– all of it topped with dollops of rancid homemade butter.
And everyone is waiting for the esteemed foreign guest to take the first bite.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, eating uncooked flesh isn’t
my favorite pastime -- but there’s no way out.
To make matters worse, I am under a paranoid delusion that if I say no, these eager and anxious Ethiopians will beat me like a sick dog. I don’t normally get such delusions, but it can only be blamed on the rank arack-like spirit served at Kitfo house. Especially worrying is the cook -- wearing his blood splattered apron, with the smooth handled cleaver tucked casually in his waistband. He catches my stare, and sends me a flinty grin – a gaping mouthful of blackened stumps and tiny bits of golden metal.
So I swallow the meat, great gobfulls of it – e-coli, salmonella, anthrax, ringworm and meat. It tastes hideous. The whole cocktail is repeatedly washed down with mind-numbing doses of stiff spirit. Ato Yigzaw and co. are almost rendered tearful by my enthusiasm.
The rest of the evening disappears in a blur of shrill laughter and ribald jokes – none of which I recall very clearly. But we hatched a diabolical scheme to take over Africa’s beer market. Our flagship product was going to be Bedele “monkey” beer – smuggled all over the continent in cattle trucks and sold at rock-bottom prices. That evening, even Heineken and Budweiser were brought to their knees in the face of Bedele 's continental assault.
So ended my chance to become Africa’s liquor baron.
And I haven’t contracted any meat-borne diseases (yet).
Comments
no subject
by Kingsley Jegan on Friday, November 7th at 09:56 AMFer your sake, I hope the spirit was strong, though the meat was weak.
LOL!
by Ashok on Saturday, November 8th at 10:36 AMYeah...that stuff was pretty strong, almost missed my flight the next day...
--Ashok
Yum!
by RonL. on Friday, November 14th at 12:27 PMHi Ashok!
I ate at an Ethiopian restaurant in Washington D.C. some years back. Being a US native, I didn't recognize the injera ... although I *did* think it pretty classy to be brought a pre-warmed napkin! ;-)
The food was wonderful! ... and did include some 'steak tartar' ... which was also very good.
Alas ... I don't think it had quite the 'atmosphere' of your dining adventure! Ha!
Fun story - thanks for sharing!
Greets!!
by Ashok on Saturday, November 15th at 10:39 AMhello there Ron!
the very first time I ate Ethiopian food, I thought my host had gone mad -- because he started eating the table-cloth (and it turned out to be njera!)
I quite like the food myself -- except for 'kitfo' a.k.a steak tartar :)
--Ashok
Not funny
by shimeter on Wednesday, May 19th at 01:52 PMAshok , your comment reflects your disdain
for anything African and I belive that is due
to your own low self esteem.
I am quite sure if you were fed beef tartar
in Germany , Russia , France, USa or anyother
white country , you would have been
blabbering how tasty the food was.
I am 100% sure Kitfo is much better than raw cabbage or cabbage and beans stew ,which is the Ugandan staple.
I hope you will find a way to shake off your complexes and be proud of your African food.
let me waste my time with you
by Pro Shimeter on Monday, November 29th at 10:29 PMwhere was the nightmare? I couldn't get it. You seemed to have enjoyed the best of treatments you could have imagined from a stranger which can only be described as nothing but the whole mark of being an Ethiopian. What you have failed to understand or deliberately misread was the fact that Ethiopians do treat guests even when they don't have any clue of what they are talking about. It was ungreatful on your part to show all the treatment you received as the reward for your praises ...... at the end I didn't get the nightmare you talked about. You better try another way of polishing your literary skills. This one stinks for me, a proud Ethiopian.
what is this??
by aklil on Saturday, January 8th at 04:01 PMyour grammar sux. your everything sux. stick to checkers buddy!
p.s. don't be a hater, we're from ethiopia and we're proud!
Poor Guy
by Asian wife married Ethiopian on Wednesday, February 16th at 04:10 PMWhat matters the most is that you had tried kitfo and came out alright. I wished I was there to see the look on your face. Maybe on your next trip to Ethiopia you might want to try cooked kitfo with Ethiopian's honey wine.
no subject
by Minilik III on Sunday, September 25th at 07:07 PMNot all of us eat Kitfo, in fact no all of us eat red meat.
There are some Ethiopian people, especially among us Aksumite Jews, who will only eat the meat of birds and fish. I myself have no choice, since I have OTC Deficiency and so can not eat any mammal meats at all unless I want to kil myself by making my blood ammonia to soar to fatal levels, causing awful convulsions and coma before death.
kitfo!
by vindimy on Wednesday, November 16th at 05:17 PMdude, kitfo is the best, although i don't eat it raw - just slightly prepared (lebleb)... you're lucky you've tried it first in such a setting!!! :)
no subject
by kulabila on Sunday, November 27th at 03:27 AMYou are suffering from lack of identity.And sound You areway overdue for thatI am sorry that we lost you dude. In orderto appreciate you have to be there or someone had to teach you(in your case nobody). Let me be honest HERE. You talk like a duck, you walk like a duck you act like aduck like a duck.You are a duck. Fellas let this be a lesson.It is a result of bad family work on kids.
no subject
by Hael on Friday, July 13th at 11:32 AMHey, I feel your pain on this one! I love ethiopian food and have tried Kitfo in the US,however; I did have them cook it well done :).. Dont give up so quickly on Ethiopian food, go for more veggies and ask for well done dishes :)
Ethiopia Natural beauty
by 1Y0-259 on Saturday, May 2nd at 08:01 AMNo doubt that Ethiopia is nice country there are lots of natural landscapes and Ethiopian runners are also quite famous in world for running.
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