Confederacy of a Dunce - Eritrean culture

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

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Last Friday the Dunces (and a special guest) had the opportunity to enjoy various pleasures of Eritrea at north London's Zigni House restaurant (Time Out review here, and my own glowing review from a previous visit is here¹). The invitation described it as "...a cultural event, capturing the essence of Eritrean food, drink and cultural traditions in hopes of adding to the already rich and diverse community of Islington Borough." With that sort of description, how could we say no? My brother-in-law The Noblesvillain was in town for the evening at the end of a tour promoting international peace and harmony (or at least high-tech solutions for all aspects of biomedical testing), so he got to come as well.

We got to the restaurant and took our seats, and hung around chatting for a while as the place filled up. All the while people were circulating with home-made Eritrean drinks. A couple different kinds of home-made beer (one of which is "suwa", made from roasted grain), both of which were tasty, quite reminiscent of cider (more so than beer), a honey wine ("mies"), not exactly my preferred flavor but quite well regarded by Mrs. Dunce, and some sort of thick fruit drink tasting of pumpkin or squash, and perhaps celery? It was a strange flavor and we were a little concerned about the Noblevillain, given his history with unfamiliar fruits (a terrible allergic reaction to lychees when he came over for our wedding). Fortunately he was spared on this occasion.

Following a very lengthy settling-in period (and some running around by restaurant staff trying to get a PA system working), the distinguished guests arrived, including the mayor and mayoress of Islington, the Eritrean ambassador, and various religious and media dignitaries. After a couple of speeches by the proprietors, the events began. It started with some sort of food demonstration in the front of the restaurant (ingredients, preparation methods, etc.), for which the guests were divided into three groups. First, the dignitaries got to see the food demonstration while the rest of the guests continued to chat, sip drinks and so on. Then the dignitaries went to a downstairs area for a cooking demonstration and a musical performance (some sort of Eritrean lounge band, as best as I can describe it), while the second group went to the food demonstration. The third group (our group), hung around and waited for a while. And then a while longer. It was not exactly organized and I was beginning to panic a little bit about getting to eat something.

Fortunately all was not lost, as we were entertained by a couple doing some traditional Eritrean dances. Many of the dances seemed to focus upon abrupt head, neck and upper body movements which made the dancers' beaded necklaces jump around (the movements reminded me a lot of popping and locking). After each dance, a quick costume change and another dance. Here's a picture of the dancers: you can just see the male dancer in the background, wearing a very pimp-like costume. This particular dance was especially suggestive with lots of pelvic thrusting and "attempted groping" (and the Mayor's face showed a suitable level of disapproval, if only for a few moments).

When the dancers finished, it was finally our turn to get up from our seats, although the food demonstration had seemingly finished by then. But never mind the demonstration as a buffet full of real food was in place, so we filled up our plates and began to gorge ourselves. As in our previous visit to Zigni House, the food was fantastic (and somehow I managed not to eat myself into a state of foundering or illness). I won't go into specifics about the food as it's quite the same story as before (link). As we finished, the dignitaries came upstairs for their food, so we took the opportunity to see what was going on down there for ourselves. At first, not much (the band was taking a break), but eventually they took the stage again (electronic keyboard with drum machine, electric krar [a sort of lyre], and electric bass) and played a few electric/lounge versions of classic Eritrean songs (hard to say much about this as none of us had the linguistic background to understand the lyrics). The Eritrean cooking continued, and occasionally someone would come around with one dish or another to sample (too bad we had already eaten our fill).

Finally we came back upstairs for another dance performance and a coffee ceremony. Although, due to the large number of guests the coffee ceremony was not so ceremonial. Ordinarily the green coffee beans are washed, then roasted and the aroma wafted under the noses of the awaiting coffee drinkers, only after which are the beans ground and added to boiling water. The coffee is quite strong and is served with a bit of sugar (and popcorn / roasted nuts and grain). Although I didn't know it at the time, proper coffee ceremony behavior is to have a minimum of three cups, complimenting the taste after each (and it is rude to leave beforehand!). Mrs. Dunce and I only had one (the first round is called "awol"), and the Noblesvillain was marginally less rude, having a second ("kale eyti"). None of us had a third ("bereka") and definitely not a fourth ("derdja"). I think our (ignorant) rudeness was not noted, however, as the coffee was being served to so many people at once. Besides, so much strong coffee so late in the evening? It would have been a jittery, insomniac disaster.

Noblesvillain (left) and Dunce, ready for coffee:

The event definitely had the intended impact on us. We're definitely going back, sooner rather than later, and are doing all we can to encourage other people to visit Zigni House as well. Mmmmmmmmmm!

¹ My previous review of the restaurant appears to be the reason we were invited in the first place. Not many reviews of Zigni House appear online, and mine was especially enthusiastic. Plus the (email) invitation matched up with a visitor who had made his/her way to my blog via Google a few minutes beforehand. Although I'm not looking for payola, I sure don't mind this kind of benefit of blogging. Don't worry, you won't see a sudden boom in restaurant reviews as I don't plan to start trolling for free food and drink.

consume

Wednesday, November 09, 2005 12:20:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)