Today, we travel to Africa in order to explore the cuisine of Somalia from the past to the present. Somalia’s prime location on the horn of Africa has let them have advantageous trade. Somalia has the longest coastline on the entire continent. With such a strategic location and geography, everyone wanted the land. In the 8th century, the Muslims were the first to take advantage of the coast and grew prosperous from it. However, the rest of the world noticed and many countries, especially Europeans, took interest in the land. In the 1880s, during the height of imperialism, Somalia was divided up into pieces between the French, British and Italians.
All these cultures brought Somali cuisine to a great level of diversity. Arabic traders introduced rice, garlic, and spices and the Indians, samosas and paratha. With it’s Islamic roots, the country largely on halal meets like goat and lamb. Bread is a staple, as it is in neighboring regions, and there are several variations, including anjero, a spongy yeasted bread, similar to that of the larger, tangier Ethiopian injera.
For breakfast, they have their own pancake like dish known as canjeero, which is always eaten with a cup of tea. Somalians are big tea drinkers. Milk is a staple in many Somalian’s diets. Some men who travel with the camel herds may drink up to nine liters a day. Despite endless coasts, Somalians generally do not eat fish. People see fisherman and those who eat fish in low regards compared to the rest of society. Lunch is considered to be the biggest dish of the day where a rice or pasta dish is served, with Italian influence. This meal needs to be extra large because usually the dinner is not eaten until after 9 pm.
They still have globally popular dishes like spaghetti and rice. However, these dishes have a special spice, xawaash. This isn’t a single spice, but an amalgamation of spices which varies by region but can include cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, turmeric and black pepper. At the side of meals a banana is served and it is meant to be mixed in and eaten with the dish. Speaking of bananas, in the 1920s, plantations were created across the country to produce bananas. These became so effective that they provided the majority of bananas to the middle east and Europe. However, in the 1990s, civil war broke out and drought and flooding brought this industry to it’s end.
In northern Somalia, Ethiopia has great influence on the dishes of the land. In particular, Doro Wat is very popular, a dish made up of Chicken stew with hard-boiled eggs.
Gashaato is a very popular desert that is made from coconut, sugar and oil, which is spiced with cardamom. It is very popular and often served at weddings or other occasions.
After meals, Somalians burn Frankincense in order to perfume their home. After only 10 minutes of burning, the whole house smells of it for hours.
It is really cool how Somalia is essentially a melting pot of many different cultures and foods. It is similar to America in this way. Another thing that stuck out to me is how geography can really affect the types of food in an area. Keep up the good work and I enjoy your awesome alliteration.
I think the geography of Somalia is very cool and interesting. Did you know that Somalia was the original home of pirates and that’s the coast where most of the looting and dangerous smuggling activities occurred. I’m sure they wanted plunder the coastal towns of Somalia for their scrumptious snacks.
I really love how your titles are alliterations every week! I don’t know how some Somalians drink 9 liters of milk a day. That seems awful. It’s also interesting how they consider eating fish to be lowly, because I feel like most fish are a delicacy in a lot of places we know. Those pancakes look really good too. Maybe I’ll try pancakes and tea for breakfast one of these days.
As usual, you presented a very interesting blog, Owen! I found it particularly interesting that eating fish is culturally looked down upon; I’m interested to research more on why that came to pass. Keep it up!
Its amazing to see the influence of other countries in the foods of Somalia, however it is rather parasoxical that fish isn’t big with such a long coastline. I was especially intrigued with the xawaash spice, the mixture of ingridients sounds very interesting!
I did not know that people in Somali saw fish in such low regard. I always assumed that they would eat a lot of fish due to having such a large coastline. I wonder why they see people who eat fish in such low regard. Is this due to the prevalence of the Somali pirates? I enjoyed reading your blog because I learned a lot about the foreign foods. It was interesting how diverse their cuisine is due to the mixture of cultures.