African and Latin American Traditions

Ethiopian cuisine centers on injera, a large, spongy, slightly sour flatbread made from fermented teff flour, a grain indigenous to the Ethiopian highlands. Injera serves simultaneously as plate, utensil, and food: various stews, or wat, made from lentils, vegetables, or meat and richly spiced with the chili-based blend berbere, are ladled directly onto a shared injera base, and diners tear off pieces of the bread to scoop up the stew, a practice that makes the meal inherently communal. Ethiopian Orthodox Christian fasting traditions, which prohibit animal products on many days of the liturgical calendar, have also shaped Ethiopian cooking toward a rich repertoire of vegetable- and legume-based dishes, giving the cuisine an unusually well-developed vegan tradition independent of any modern dietary movement. Ethiopia’s coffee ceremony, rooted in the country’s status as a likely origin point for coffee cultivation, further reflects this same emphasis on unhurried, communal hospitality.