I’ve yet to find a traditional Ethiopian dish that I crave. In fact, I don’t believe that I ever will. What I have found are a ton of concoctions that I would prefer not to sample again and at the top of that list is GUNFO. I was first introduced to this creation while in training. When my host Mom set before me a heaping dish of gunfo all I could do was pray that for every spoonful I ate, 10 more would vanish. Unfortunately, it seemed to behave more like the loaves and fishes!
Gunfo is a dish made of wheat flour and water that is boiled into a paste, shaped like a volcano, filled with homemade butter (kibe) and topped with a spoonful of berbery paste. Think play-doh with toppings. Given that I now cook for myself, one would think that it would be fairly easy to avoid gunfo, but no. At one point early on in my time at site, Aselef (my landlady) made gunfo for me and in an attempt to be polite I must have implied that I enjoyed it. I very much appreciated her thoughtfulness, but I’m continuing to reap the consequences of not being direct. Big mistake! Now I am either summoned out back to pick up my heaping bowl of the stuff or am given the powder to make my own with instructions to return and show them what I’ve made. Talk about no way out! One evening while entertaining Smith, Straw, and Megan, I heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Aselef with gunfo for a party of four! Perfect!
Gunfo is a dish made of wheat flour and water that is boiled into a paste, shaped like a volcano, filled with homemade butter (kibe) and topped with a spoonful of berbery paste. Think play-doh with toppings. Given that I now cook for myself, one would think that it would be fairly easy to avoid gunfo, but no. At one point early on in my time at site, Aselef (my landlady) made gunfo for me and in an attempt to be polite I must have implied that I enjoyed it. I very much appreciated her thoughtfulness, but I’m continuing to reap the consequences of not being direct. Big mistake! Now I am either summoned out back to pick up my heaping bowl of the stuff or am given the powder to make my own with instructions to return and show them what I’ve made. Talk about no way out! One evening while entertaining Smith, Straw, and Megan, I heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Aselef with gunfo for a party of four! Perfect!
Smith, Me, Straw, and Megan
