Right. So, there I was, rummaging for a note. Not just any note, mind you, but the one declaring the solemn start of my in-depth Shakespearean studies—the first, among many, but decidedly the first. Why this sudden scholarly urge? Well, the newspeak, you see. From the wireless, from the papers. A man gets tired. And wouldn’t you know it, this intellectual awakening coincided precisely with that day in Addis Ababa. Thirty-three years ago, to the day, the ammunition depots went off.
I was living nearby, and the concussive force, it flattened buildings, sparked fires. Lucky, I suppose, that it happened a week after the rebel forces seized the government. The city’s largest ammunition depot—a fine place for such things, one might think—erupted just before dawn. A huge explosion. The city, it rocked. Like a big earthquake, with pauses, mind you. A firestorm of rockets, bullets—some with tracer lightning, like a morbid fireworks display—and “shrapnels” tearing through the teeming slums. People killed, wounded. Many more buried, they reckoned, beneath the rubble of their homes. The explosions, they kept coming, for hours. Vast balls of fire into the night sky. I’ll never forget the first one. Threw me to a ditch. Then its subsequent, fraternal blasts, threw me to the ground. The first, I was standing near my house. Looked like fireworks, I tell you, until that big one. Found myself in a ditch, then out of the house, clutching my national tape recorder. Fleeing with my neighbors, toward Gofa Sefer, through vegetable gardens, approaching Mekanisa. And there, a sight: an expectant mother, using her “netella” as a chain for her dog. A lifetime. Never to forget.
What Comes to Mind When One Speaks of Food?
Unfortunately, as the next note was being taken, it wasn’t the usual fare, I assure you. Not the bees. No. Not their alarming disappearance, nor their apian labors, though they account for a third of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables we consume. No. Nor the specter of Struldbrugs. Those wretched, decrepit beings from Swift’s imagination. Never dying, merely living on as a burden. To the state. And certainly, no one’s mind turned to such a dreary notion as the government-mandated reduction of life’s joys through dietary guidelines. No. Not that.
It was neither of scientific classifications nor of socio-political anxieties. It never drifted to the cognoscente discerning subtle nuances, the epicure reveling in sheer pleasure, or the gastronome understanding the art and science behind every bite. Not the cozy estaminet on a cobbled street, filled with locals, each nursing a single course and a beer. I did not envision food so delicious, so utterly moreish, that one simply could not get enough. It wasn’t ambrosial, fit for the gods, nor even toothsome, a savory delight. It certainly wasn’t the act of commensal dining, that shared breaking of bread, ritual interwoven with social, psychological, even religious significance.
Neither a succulent viand nor a hearty victual came to mind. I didn’t picture the gourmandise, the sheer love of good food, and not, I assure you, Frankenfood with all its bioengineered controversies. I didn’t ponder hyperphagia or polyphagia, those abnormal increases in appetite. Neither was I concerned with pabulum, that insipid fare of infancy, nor alimentation as a clinical term for nourishment.
My mind didn’t wander to the peculiar habits of ichthyophagous herons or theories on how a piscivorous diet affects one’s complexion. I wasn’t contemplating the strenuous journey of anadromous fish upstream, nor dissecting the fine points of piscatorial pursuits. The anatomical perfections of a piscine specimen or the vast field of ichthyology never entered the frame. And you certainly wouldn’t catch me musing over a lunker being reeled in or the act of seining for anything, much less a spider. No, my thoughts weren’t caught up in the flowery language of halieutic prose or the sheer physical prowess implied by being sthenic. I didn’t imagine myself grabbling for Qurt Tire Siga from Kebede Tire Siga and slashing with a knife in his noisy hall, nor pondering the meticulous process of comminuting or triturating ingredients into oblivion.
When the topic was food, I wasn’t immediately drawn to trophic levels, nor did I picture someone gormandizing to excess. I wasn’t concerned with whether a dish adhered to the strictures of comme il faut French dining, nor consulting Hoyle for proper table manners. And you wouldn’t find me getting persnickety about the details, like some finicky grammarian of the culinary arts. Furthermore, it didn’t stray to caviling about slow service at a drive-through. The notion of a summum bonum in culinary perfection didn’t consume me, though the moreish quality that leaves you wanting more is certainly appreciated. I didn’t view food as a cheap and showy brummagem trinket or a flimsy gimcrack. It was neither a superfluous furbelow nor something ostentatiously orchidaceous. It didn’t include the polite chatter of phatic greetings or the lively atmosphere of Anacreontic gatherings. I wasn’t dreaming of the mythical land of Cockaigne, where cooked chickens spontaneously appear. I didn’t delve into the medical conditions of polyphagia or gulosity, nor the peculiar appetite of pica. And while an amuse-bouche can be a delightful prelude, it’s not the sum total of my culinary imaginings. I wasn’t engaging in playful raillery about British cuisine. I wasn’t debating the age-old adage of de gustibus non est disputandum, nor scientifically dissecting the gustatory pleasures of French cooking. I was neither critically degusting every morsel nor contemplating the intricate faculty of gustation. It wasn’t about the tasteless or the unfortunate social faux pas of dontopedalogy. And certainly, it wasn’t about poshlost or its associated vulgarity.
It’s neither the lack of sustenance nor its excessive consumption that comes to mind. It’s not the delightful, the desirable, the utterly delectable. It is neither the functional nor the scientific. It is not the simple, profound joy of a good meal.
The Injera Incident, Or a Gut Feeling
So, the daily injera incident. You know, the usual. But before that, just recently, the news came down: that Dutch fellow, Jans Roosjen, and his teff patent. Done with. He claimed he’d invented the way to store and process teff. Ethiopia, poor thing, couldn’t cut a deal with him, couldn’t even kill his patent. So it stuck. Until he got greedy, threatened another Dutch company for making teff without paying up. That’s when it fell apart. His patent, a short life it had, was invalidated in 2014. The appeal deadline passed. So, as they reported, it’s dead. Permanently.
As the news bubbled, the very thought—a salivating thought, mind you—of injera gourmandization for lunch, it came to my mind. It had been a long while since I’d had some. So I asked my fruit vendor, in my very own neighborhood, to suggest a proper spot. He, with a confidence one rarely encounters, suggested one right near his shop. A makeshift wing of a house, its fence, mind you, pushed its concrete walls two meters into the public area. You could see the mark on the wall. And there it was. On my lunch menu. With a darling sauce. Unusually, I took two rounds. Cleared my throat with water. No venality, alias sycophancy. This was our day’s injera’s trail.
As dusk loomed, as though clutched, nothing, absolutely nothing, seemed in transit in my digestive canal. Two or three bananas. No budge. Dinner skipped. I went to bed. Had to leave early, you see, for a serious matter. A matter calling for grace, my presence. Imbibed water. Unlike any other days. My day-by-day restroom stopover deferred. A nonentity, in actual fact, emerged from my tummy. Hurried to my kitchen, on the double, breakfast ready in my Firfir. The rest of the day, it went by. Uncommonly, I munched in excess of the customary. Why? Perhaps the auto-pilot in my system, kicking in, as extra pump to pump out. Afterward, I gulped more water, as unusual. Then, a rush to town for my issues.
Hours later, immobile numbness. Mother Nature’s call to a lavatory. Zilch, other than gushing urine. Alias, a pounding constipation nuisance within my head, pleading an immediate return home. The fight, you understand, was in the heavyweights category. Have you ever thought of being corked bottom up? No fatty, buttery word to chest off how it chokes. Almost half a bucket of water. Spinning over the floor. Pumping out with all my might, just as though I was going to burst… The head-to-bottom bout went on to the following day. A sense of lock. Repeated pain-cum-tears.
The Unseen Adulterations
As I related in retrospect, there was a jumpiness clouding the spectacled young girl’s little face while she did the injera delivery. My eyes glazed over, as I imagined why we, as a community, could not impede sawdust, chalk powder, and mold-ridden recycled injera from our food. A torrent of thoughts in my mind. A quantum-lit travel to my childhood. Before I knew any hospital names, Malaria Eradication or Tuberculosis Prevention programs were prevailing. Was there a prevention mentality then, unlike now? I opened the door in my mind for the siren call of the positivist Anomie theory, alias strain theory, which locates pathology within the social structure as opposed to within the individual. No doubt there is an undue emphasis on goals, especially economic ones, without corresponding avenues of access, available to all members of our day’s society, creating a strain in its certain segments and, ultimately, a push toward deviance.
A bit of a biotechnology philosophy: why teff is grown the way it is for thousands of years. Remembrance of how overwhelmed I, in veracity, was with the news of researches to grow teff the way sorghum does, though with no evident breakthrough. Not more than for eternity a ton a hectare apiece, with our population growth by a kind of 180% from year 1980 alone, yield vs. diversity fights vis-à-vis honoring the diversity contour. Eye-watering memories, for ever and a day, tearing pieces along with scooping up a spongy fresh injera, as spiraled, as griddled in my mom’s hand with her only one of its crescendo blend wood charcoal cooked hearty Gomen Besega or else Key Dinich Besega stews with its tasty flavor. What a mess up, opening the injera lemat, if caught in front of Mom and Dad, mainly with dad, as he just used to throw whatever he’d got in his hands at me as it was not for men.
A Sickness Untreated, A Cycle Unbroken
So, I looked into the health situation here in Ethiopia, right down to my recent pissoir emergency. It’s choked with “Nos.” No National Health Research System. No evidence-based strategies for actually doing anything about health. No researchers working together. No one funding research, no one using it. No proper laws, no regulations. No clear way to run health research. The research institutes? Tiny. The output? Paltry. No one gives researchers a reason to stay, so they leave. Young scientists don’t see a career in it. My head, reading all this research about the research system, was about to blow.
Then, a mental workout on Food Systems and Healthier Diets. Still more “Nos.” No guidelines for Ethiopia specifically. No rules about food labeling. Our diet? Monotonous. Ethiopia, out of 125 countries, came in dead last on Oxfam’s food quality index. People barely eat fruits and vegetables. Quality protein is scarce. As for vitamins and minerals, a widespread shortage of A and zinc. Unhealthy stuff, usually ultra-processed, is changing diets in cities—things like imported palm oil. And foodborne pathogens? Common causes of illness and death. A public health mess.
Inside, I was fuming, thinking about that vicious “issue attention cycle.” You know, a problem suddenly hits the news, everyone pays attention for a bit, then it just fades away, unresolved, making room for the next big thing. Like HIV-AIDS. First, I heard it was just an American thing, tied to certain lifestyles, nothing to do with us. Then a case or two popped up here. And then, these angels in medical gowns, Dr. Debrework and an MD from the Army Hospital, they appeared on the black and white ETV, spilling the beans about the scourge. It was shocking, jolting, nudging—everything you could imagine. Then she, (where are you, my dear?) and her crew orchestrated a full-frontal assault, laying out all the doomsday scenarios. And then, a call from one of the top officials. Told them to stop the “overblown scaremongering,” not to “strike terror in the community.” The campaign, at its point of no return, stalled. Crashed. The rest, as they say, is history.
Back in my school days, I loved “ምን ሰርተው ታወቁ“ on Ethiopian Radio, formerly Bisrate Wongel. Solomon Gebreselassie hosted it. A guest, I can’t recall his name, a self-made millionaire—a thousander, for those days—brought up this inedible food colorant. It was plainly marked as such, yet it was being used, far and wide, to adulterate pastries in towns. Later, I figured it had to be metanil yellow, a yellow dye used in textiles, paper, wood. Decades ago, Europeans used it to color butter. Now, animal studies say it’s bad news—neurotoxic, hepatotoxic. Here, it was for coloring afar dabbo, a yellowish sweet bread, no eggs, so it looked like it had eggs. The packages even plainly said “non-edible.”
Then I made a list of the other criminal partners in crime, the adulterants of the day: ergot in cereals, chicory root and tamarind in coffee powder, papaya seed in black pepper, brick powder in chili powder, argemone in cooking oils, sawdust and chalk powder in teff flour, banana in butter, grease in honey. A whole roster of criminal superlatives. I only wished I had their material safety data sheets. This Russian roulette of adulteration leads to diarrhea, belly pain, nausea, vomiting, bad eyesight, headaches, cancer, anemia, insomnia, muscle paralysis, brain damage, stomach problems, vertigo, joint pain, liver trouble, dropsy, gut issues, breathing trouble, heart attacks, glaucoma, kidney failure. A shivery list, indeed.
The Unending Cycle
Food safety. That’s simply freedom from bad stuff in your grub—environmental junk, toxins, anything that hurts you. The European Food Safety Authority, they make it their business to talk about the risks in the food chain. Here in Ethiopia, the Quality and Standards Agency sets the rules for food and plenty of other goods. But they seem to mostly deal with the organized companies. No real word on tracking products from the countless disorganized outfits, the informal sector.
It strikes me, we ought to copy that European model. Get someone in Ethiopia to assess risks in the food chain, communicate them fast and loud, and help manage the policy side of things. It looks like we need a solid outfit, maybe the Standards Authority teamed up with the Food, Medicine and Healthcare Administration and Control Authority. That seems like a binding idea. This sort of work involves everything: making new food safety laws, approving things like pesticides and additives, even cooking up new nutrition guidelines. We’ve got to watch our future food, of course. All that hard work to get bigger yields needs to be aligned with what farmers are already growing, conserving diversity before it’s too late. And for crying out loud, let’s get rid of the roadblocks in our National Health Research System. All of them, if possible.
Social problems, big ones and small ones, need sorting. They’re basically a reflection of how marginalized folks are in society, which, among other things, stops us from feeling any love for our food—a social opportunity cost, if you like. And don’t start blaming just the administrators. It’s not that simple. It takes two to tango. We, the people, need to get tough. Form some consumer associations. Our ability to identify and trace products needs a serious upgrade, especially when facing these grim food risks. And the media, with its here-today, gone-tomorrow attitude to life-or-death issues? That’s got to stop.
Voilà! Two days later, a rock-hard something finally emerged. What a relief. Beyond earthly words, in the company of its scary conjuring. “Never again,” I told myself, over and over. Yet, it’s injera! You never say never again. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Mom. From now on, it’s my own spiraled and griddled injera, all in my grip, from the milling house to my table. Another creepy thought, like an injera for my mind: was it a dream, or real? A chalk talk with my friend, a doctor. He said a scar is common on our liver, among us Ethiopians. Molds. Scary scars. So, one eats. One endures. And then, what? Is that all there is?
Contributed by Tadesse Tsegaye