I’m always asking the kids to try different foods and see if they like them or not. “try the broccoli and see if you like it” “try the pizza with sauce on it, you’ll like it even more with sauce on it.” Most times they don’t have a problem with trying new things unless it’s something utterly disgusting like brussels sprouts, so we had a little dilemma when my brother decided that he wanted to eat Ethiopian food. I didn’t actually go with them to eat because I had to work that day, so I figured that I had dodged a bullet and wouldn’t have to try and figure out what to eat. I would be able to go home after work and indulge in a cheese pizza but my family in all their kind heartedness decided that they would bring me back a plate of Ethiopian cuisine. My mom told me how the kids had tried and loved the injera bread . From what I understand, Injera bread is a sourdough pancake -like flatbread that is made out of fermented teff flour . My mom went on about how good this bread was and how much the kids enjoyed tearing pieces of it and using it to scoop up the stew and whatever else they had eaten.

I opened the Styrofoam container and this is what I found:

As I looked at it I didn’t think it looked too appealing, but after having the kids try all sorts of things throughout their lifetimes I would have to at least try it and who knows maybe I would like it. The kids liked it and they are much more finicky about what they eat than I am. I have to say that when I talk about the kids, I’m talking about kids that will eat endaname, sushi, shrimp, tofu, and soy milk. I guess I should have known better.

Reluctantly I pulled a small piece of the injera bread and put it in my mouth. As soon as it touched my tongue I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t just spit it out because that would just be nasty, so slowly I began to chew it and that was my biggest mistake of the day. I should note that it was late in the day and I had already made my share of mistakes - such as volunteering to work on a holiday weekend when my usual lunch places were closed. The injera bread was soft and squishy or for you literary types, it was spongy. The more I chewed, the more I tasted the bitter flavor of vomit. It reminded me of the time when my nephew was a baby and I carried him above my head. He threw up and I was positioned in the right place to catch most of his vomit in my mouth. You literary types my find vomit as disgusting, but my regular blogger readers find vomit and farts funny- now as I think about it, my nephew may have farted when he threw up. As irrelevant as my nephew farting is to this blog post, it’s still funny as hell.

I couldn’t help it, I had to spit it out. I ran to the trash can and spit the ingera bread out. There was no way in hell that I was going to even attempt to eat the Ethiopian YeBeg Wot Stew .

I’m sorry to all the Ethiopians who may read this, but I’ll just stick to Wonder Bread and let my brother and his kids be the ambassadors of peace through food.