Injera, the Plate You Can Eat

Imagine that your plate was made of bread.

Not bread on the plate. The plate itself. Soft, round, wide as a bicycle wheel, and covered all over in tiny holes like a sponge.

This is injera, and in Ethiopia it is how dinner arrives.

It is made from a grain called teff. Teff is the smallest grain in the world. A single seed is no bigger than a speck of dust, and you could hold a hundred of them in the palm of your hand without feeling a thing. It grows high up in the Ethiopian mountains, where the air is thin and cool.

The flour is mixed with water and then left alone for a few days, quietly bubbling to itself, which is what makes all the little holes.

Then it is poured onto a big round griddle in a spiral, from the outside in, and cooked until the holes open like hundreds of tiny eyes.

At dinner, one enormous injera is laid down, and all the food is spooned on top of it in bright piles. Yellow lentils. Red stew. Green cabbage. Nobody gets their own plate. There is one plate, in the middle, and it belongs to everybody.

You tear off a piece with your right hand, scoop up whatever you like best, and eat it.

And there is one more thing, the best thing.

Sometimes, someone who loves you will roll up a perfect mouthful and put it gently into your mouth with their own hand. It is called gursha. It means: I am thinking of you, and I wanted you to have the best bit.

At the very end, when the food is gone, the plate is gone too. Because everybody ate it.

Goodnight. Sleep well.