Israelis owe many debts of gratitude to the many Ethiopian Jews who immigrated to Israel, and one of those is the introduction to many of the highly cultured attitudes and customs that center about dining.
Ethiopians treat dining as an important social event and several very pleasant traditions have arisen as a result of this. One of the most pleasant of these is that every guest present at dinner is expected to tell a story about a meal that he or she has eaten in the past.

The stories may be about meals that were superb or those that were terrible, they may be true or they may be false, they may be simple or they may be outrageous, and they may relate to the quality of the food, the guests or any other relevant factor. The host usually starts off with the first story and it is then up to him to encourage the guests in the inventiveness and color of their own tales.

As to the "ultimate" Ethiopian dish, that is probably that was the favorite of Emperor Haile Selasse,
The dish, which is known as "Wat Meander", is meant to be served to 150 guests was made by hard boiling eight hundred hard boiled eggs and roasting twenty turkeys. Then, to make a stuffing for the turkeys, chefs combined 30 baskets of rolls, huge fistfuls of spices and an incredible amount of parsley.

The preparations continued when two antelopes were roasted with huge chunks of butter. After all of this, the stuffing was put in the turkeys, the turkeys were put into the antelopes and hundreds of hard-boiled eggs were used to fill in the empty spaces before the cooks roasted everything together". At this point a live camel was brought in and slaughtered in the garden. Three wagon loads of wood were also brought, a huge fire was made and, when the fire had burned down and only glowing coals remained, the camel was then barbecued on a spit supported by tripods. When the camel was almost done, it was filled with the antelopes that had been filled with the stuffed turkeys and the cavity was lined with fish and more hard boiled eggs.

When the guests arrived at the Emperor's palace, they found that the tables had been set with gold forks, knives, spoons and plates. The meal opened with barbecued suckling pigs and baby lambs. They then proceeded to consume several large cauldrons of soup and a dish of cold veal with a black sauce. Finally, the cooks sharpened long sabers and, when the camel was brought in they sliced it in half with broad strokes. Each half was then sliced in half again, and then again and again until every slice contained a piece of camel and antelope, turkey, fish, stuffing and little circles of hard boiled eggs.

To the best of my knowledge, the dish has not been prepared in Israel. If anyone does intend to prepare it in the future, wither in Israel or anyplace else in the rest of the world, I would be absolutely delighted to accept an invitation. I even promise to bring several bottles of very appropriate wine.

© Daniel Rogov