TUNIS, TUNISIA (AFP) — Ethiopian film “Teza” scooped four main awards at Africa’s Carthage Film Festival Saturday, including the coveted Golden Tanit for its “modesty and genius.”
Tunisian culture minister Abderraouf
Basti and Ethiopian director Haile Gerima
|
The film by Haile Gerima bagged the top prize on the last day of the festival in Tunisia, beating the Palestinian film “Leila’s Birthday” and Tunisia’s entry “Khamsa” to second and third place respectively.
“Teza” tells the story of an Ethiopian doctor at the height of the Cold War who comes back to his country from the West under the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in the 1970s.
The film also picked up awards for best scenario, best music and best supporting actor.
Other festival winners included “Yellow House” by Algerian director Amor Hakkar, while the Tanit of Honour went to Burkina Faso actor Sotigui Kouyate.
However, controversy struck the 22nd festival when the Syrian government intervened to ban the entry of a short film, “Zabad”, by director Reem Ali about two of the country’s former political prisoners.
The Carthage Film Festival, which showcases Arab and African films, is held every two years in the Tunisian capital. Tanit is a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshipped as the patron goddess at Carthage.
By Pam Starr, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA – The chefs at Tana Ethiopian Cuisine in East Liberty go through more than 200 pounds of onions every week.
Since most of the stews are onion-based, and onions are a big staple in Ethiopian food, it’s easy to see how they can use so much of the pungent vegetable.
Another huge item is berebere, an imported Ethiopian red pepper spice, which is commonly used in just about everything.
“All of our spices come from Ethiopia,” says owner Seifu Haileyesus, who hails from Addis Ababa, the country’s capital. “Berebere gives the dishes their rich color and the spiciness of the food.”
The 92-seat Tana Ethiopian Cuisine opened in January on Baum Boulevard, right down the street from another Ethiopian restaurant. But Haileyesus isn’t worried about the competition.
“Business attracts other businesses,” says Haileyesus, who was a business student at Robert Morris University, then worked as a small business consultant for eight years, then a bank, before opening Tana. “We are creating more jobs. Shoppers have options. I see it as an opportunity.”
It’s a family affair at Tana, with Haileyesus’s older sister, Abebech Haileyesus, working as the head chef. Martha Vasser is his cousin and the restaurant’s manager. She also helps out in the kitchen when needed. There are about 12 employees, and the restaurant serves around 50 to 60 dinners a night on weekends.
“Ethiopian food is eaten with your hands, but we do have forks and knives,” Vasser says. “Our entrees are served on a bed of injera, which is traditional Ethiopian bread. It is made with teff, an indigenous grain, and wheat.”
Injera looks like a large, spongy pancake. It is made by fermenting the teff and water for a few days, then adding wheat flour and mixing until it resembles pancake batter. After sitting a day in the refrigerator, the injera is cooked on a hot skillet for 20 seconds.
“You break off pieces of the injera and scoop up the vegetables with it,” Vasser says. “Most people come here just for the vegetarian meals we have.”
All of Tana’s entrees, including beef, lamb and chicken, are cooked in a hot berebere sauce or a milder turmeric sauce and served on injera or rice. One of the most popular entrees is tikil gomen, which Seifu Haileyesus describes as a “delectable mix of cabbage and carrots, slowly simmered in sauteed onions and fresh garlic.”
Diners also can find collard greens, simmered with minced onions, fresh garlic and ginger.
Tables at Tana are covered in tablecloths with red, green and yellow stripes — the colors of the Ethiopian flag. Authentic Ethiopian artifacts and artwork adorn the bright yellow walls. The hardwood floors gleam from a fresh cleaning.
“I make sure our guests are comfortable,” Haileyesus says. “I feel like you are coming to my home. It’s important to have respect for people.”
He says he doesn’t cook, because, in Ethiopia, only the women learn how to cook from their mothers and grandmothers.
“Outside work is for the men,” he says with a smile. “It’s our culture that every woman knows how to cook. I’m good at washing the dishes and the floor.”
Meal times are very important in Ethiopia, Martha Vasser says, because eating is a communal activity. It’s actually insulting if you’re in someone’s house and you don’t eat what is offered to you.
“Nobody eats alone,” she says. “We have a saying — if you eat alone, you die alone.”
Abebech Haileyesus, who does not speak English, chose to share her famous Misir Wot vegetarian entree with Cooking Class. It is a delicious warm dish made with split lentils, onions, oil, ginger, garlic, water and a whopping 1 cup of berebere, or Ethiopian red pepper.
The dish is very spicy, but is tempered by the injera, which has a more bland taste.
Injera cannot be bought in Pittsburgh, Haileyesus says, but sometimes he sells it from the restaurant to certain customers.
“You can buy injera and berebere in Washington, D.C., but not here,” he says. “But you can order them online.”
Misir Wot
• 2 cups split lentils
• 6 cups water, more for boiling
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable or olive oil
• 1 cup berebere, an Ethiopian red pepper spice blend (see recipe)
• 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
• 1 teaspoon fresh minced garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon black cumin (can substitute ground coriander)
•Salt, to taste
ט cups cooked rice
Wash the lentils (see photo 1) and put aside. If preferred, lentils can be boiled for 5 minutes, until tender.
Cook the chopped onions, adding oil (see photo 2) and stirring gently until golden brown (see photo 3), adding a little water as needed to prevent sticking.
Add berbere, ginger, garlic and black cumin and salt to taste (see photo 4). Stir until well-mixed and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add lentils to the pan (see photo 5). Add reserved water, stirring to prevent sauce from sticking to the pan as you let simmer for 20 minutes.
Serve on rice.
Makes 6 servings.
Berebere
Berebere is a chile-and-spice blend used to season many Ethiopian dishes. Because authentic berbere can be hard to find, we developed our own recipe. This recipe comes from Epicurious.com.
Berebere keeps in an airtight container, chilled, for 3 months.
• 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek (available at Penzeys Spices in the Strip District)
• 1/2 cup ground dried New Mexico chiles
• 1/4 cup paprika
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
Finely grind fenugreek seeds in an electric coffee or spice grinder. Stir together with remaining ingredients until combined well.
Makes about 1 cup.
MOGADISHU (AFP) — At least five people were killed Saturday in a roadside bomb attack targeting a local official in the Somali town of Baidoa, south of Mogadishu, witnesses and police said.
The blast went off as district commissioner Hasan Moalim Ahmed’s vehicle drove by, wounding the official and killing three members of his security escort as well as two civilians, witnesses said.
“The commissioner’s vehicle was completely destroyed by a roadside bomb. I saw three of his guards and two civilians killed on the spot, seven others including the commissioner were also wounded,” one of the eyewitnesses, Abdisalan Adan Yare, said.
Hasan Yake Doyow, a police officer, confirmed the attack took place.
“The roadside bomb tore the commissioner’s vehicle apart and there are casualties. The commissioner himself was among the wounded but I cannot say how many died,” he said.
One of the official’s aides said the district commissioner’s wounds were not life-threatening.
“He suffered minor injuries but some of his guards died,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Baidoa is the seat of the transitional administration’s parliament but radical insurgents control positions around the city, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of the capital.
Islamist insurgents and other groups carry out daily hit-and-run attacks against government targets and Ethiopian Woyanne troops.
Somalia’s civilian population has borne the brunt of the violence in the Horn of Africa country, with some estimates saying at least 8,000 have died since the start of the year alone.
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.
Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.
Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.
“This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo,” David Copeman, Amnesty International’s Somalia campaigner, said in a statement Friday.
Somalia is among the world’s most violent and impoverished countries. The nation of some 8 million people has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 then turned on each other.
A quarter of Somali children die before age 5; nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.
Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been battling the government and its Ethiopian allies since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians.
In recent months, the militants appear to be gaining strength. The group has taken over the port of Kismayo, Somalia’s third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it.
By Stan Dyer, Denver Dining Examiner
There have always been many Italian, Chinese and Mexican variant restaurants to {www:choose} from in Denver, but, recently, a number of new cuisines are adding their mix to the lot. One of these is African {www:food} and, in particular, the cuisine of Ethiopia as witnessed by the number of establishments offering this new dining experience to the city. On the recommendation of a {www:friend}, I ventured into one called “Axum” on East Colfax and am back with my review.
.JPG "Axum Ethiopian Restaurant")
For those who are unfamiliar with Ethiopian cooking, (as I was just a short while ago), it is basically “wats” or “tibs” served on and with a type of bread called “injera” or “taita”. No utensils are used for eating. Instead, pieces of the injera are torn off and used to pick up bites of food. The “wats”, (or “wots”, as this restaurant calls them), are “stews” and the “tibs” are “sautés”. Traditionally, the food is eaten off a woven “Mesob” after the hands are washed with soap and water, and, generally, the right hand is used to put the food to the mouth.
This was my first experience with Ethiopian food and I found it to be quite tasty, although I was expecting something a bit more spicy. The “Berbere” is a traditional Ethiopian spice composed of chili pepper, ginger, cloves, coriander, allspice, rue berries and ajwain. It is supposed to be as spicy as Southwest chili powder, but I found it very tame. We tried the Vegetarian Combo and were able to sample a variety of vegetarian “wots”.
Our vegetarian combo included samples of Yemesir Wot which are lentils in hot barbecue sauce, Ater Wot which are peas cooked with garlic, ginger roots and spices, and Shiro Wot which are chickpeas seasoned with garlic, berbere and Ethiopian spices. Also included in our combination were a salad and another dish with cabbage, carrot and potato. The salad was a {www:tradition} salad like you might find in any restaurant and I do not know what the other dish was or why it was there. The salad was supposed to contain jalapenos, but I did not notice any. As for the various wots, they were very tasty and reminded me of lighter versions of Indian cuisine. Yet, the injera is something that will take a little getting used to for me.
“Injera” or “Taita” is a grayish-brown, spongy bread made from fermented teft flour. Teft is a type of seasonal grass indigenous to northern Ethiopia and often used in cooking. The bread resembles a pancake in consistency and texture, but falls apart easily and, served cold, is unfamiliar to Western cultures. It has a pleasant flavor, but neither the temperature nor the texture suited my tastes.
While we were there, we also sampled the Ethiopian beer and a honey wine called “Tej” that is said to resemble mead. The beer had a good, light taste similar to American beers, but was strikingly devoid of carbonation. The honey wine tasted like some kind of champagne mixed-drink like a mimosa, except it, too, lacked the carbonation. It was an interesting dining and cultural experience, but not without fault.
If you decide to try this restaurant, be ready for a little cultural shock. It is not particularly clean either inside or out. Also, we had some communication problems with the help. Our first server spoke only Spanish and knew very few words of English. Our second server had a better grasp of English, but seemed to be a native speaker of Amharic or some other Ethiopian dialect. Many of the bilingual customers had no problem communicating their desires, but, for those unfamiliar with African tongues, it was difficult. Being vegetarian, we worried that we would be misunderstood and served something with meat in it. Fortunately, Ethiopian cuisine is largely vegetarian and popular with vegetarians worldwide. The service was, however, very friendly and accommodating considering the circumstance, although no one ever brought out the traditional soap and water and our food was not served on a Mesob.
I will not rate this restaurant. If you like Indian food or cultural adventure, you will probably like this cuisine as well. If you are familiar with African languages and cuisine, you will also probably enjoy this restaurant. If, however, cleanliness, both inside and out is a concern of yours, I must throw up the caution flag and advise you in advance to approach with caution. Nothing I consumed made me the slightest bit ill, but I still feel the restaurant could do with some broom work, some vacuuming and a good wipe down throughout.
