Injera: the bread that is also the plate

What it is

Injera is a sour, fermented, pancake-like flatbread with a slightly spongy texture, traditionally made of teff flour. In Ethiopia it is a staple, like bread or rice elsewhere.[1]

Teff is a cereal that originated in Ethiopia and is mostly eaten in Ethiopia and Eritrea.[1] The same bread is called injera in Amharic, taita in Tigrinya and buddeena in Oromo.[1]

How it is made

The teff is milled into fine flour and kneaded with water. The dough is fermented with a starter called ersho, kept from earlier batches, for 24 to 72 hours.[1]

The batter is then poured in a spiral, from the outside in, onto a large round griddle called a mitad, heated to 90–95 °C, and covered. It cooks for two to four minutes.[1]

A grain with a price

Teff is expensive, so injera made only of teff is a symbol of wealth, and white teff, dearer than red, signals higher status.[1]

Many cooks mix grains. In the lowlands injera is often made with sorghum and in the highlands more often with barley, and the mix follows the price of teff.[1]

More than a food

Injera is seen as a national dish in Ethiopia, and a picture of a mesob, the basket where it is kept, is on the 10 birr banknote.[1]

Weddings and religious holidays feature it. At funerals, guests from outside the family bring mesobs full of injera. On Ethiopian Orthodox fast days, when believers eat no animal products, it is served with lentil and vegetable dishes.[1]

In and around Bahir Dar, some families wrap a baby in injera after baptism for good luck, and people say that a woman who makes injera with good eyes is as hard-working as a honeybee.[1]

Beyond the Horn

Similar breads are made in Sudan, Chad and Kenya. In Kenya the Borana and Gabra of the north eat a variant.[1]

In the United States injera became common during the Ethiopian immigration of the 1980s and 1990s, and an Ethiopian-American immigrant, Tedla Desta, opened the first injera bakery, in Alexandria, Virginia.[1]