Teff

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Mad Cook

Mad Cook

Master Chef
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"The Food Programme" (BBC Radio 4) today was all about Teff, which is a gluten free grain suitable for Coeliacs. It;s approved by Coeliac Societies in Britain and Ireland and according to the programme, it's available on NHS prescription for coeliacs in the UK.

Apparently, it makes flatbreads that taste a bit like sourdough and it comes as breakfast cereals too.

I expect I'm "trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs" but I thought it was interesting enough to post here.
 
I have had the flat bread made of teff in an Ethiopian resto. Very interesting flavour and texture. It went very well with the food. I haven't had it in several years because that resto closed.

We used to order stuff served like this. You can see the rolls of flat bread and it probably lines the serving dish. You can also see people picking up the food with the flat bread.

800px-Ethiopian_food.jpg


from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_cuisine
 
Here's more info on it:

Eragrostis tef - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one thought I had was that if follows quinoa in trendiness, it will impact the diet of Ethiopians. In South America, the price and availability of quinoa, a staple in the diet of thousands, has made it too expensive for many--more profitable to export it to Europe and NA. This has meant that there has been a rise in the consumption of inexpensive packaged / processed foods in SA. I guess I'll stick with naked oats--grown here in Canada. Although, if I see some, I might just have to try it, just once.
 
CWS4322 said:
Here's more info on it:

Eragrostis tef - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one thought I had was that if follows quinoa in trendiness, it will impact the diet of Ethiopians. In South America, the price and availability of quinoa, a staple in the diet of thousands, has made it too expensive for many--more profitable to export it to Europe and NA. This has meant that there has been a rise in the consumption of inexpensive packaged / processed foods in SA. I guess I'll stick with naked oats--grown here in Canada. Although, if I see some, I might just have to try it, just once.
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"The Food Programme" covered that. There's an Ethiopian ban on the export of Teff. The Ethiopians learned a hard lesson when they listened to "experts" from the west who "persuaded" them to abandon Teff for maize which sparked off the Ethiopian famine.

Teff is being grown several states in the USA eg Oregon, Nevada, Kansas and Iowa. It's a very hardy crop (but it doesn't like frost) and in the right conditions will produce 4 crops a year. It also produces "hay" for animal feed - llamas and alpacas, apparently, like it better than grass hay.
 
Mad Cook said:
"The Food Programme" covered that. There's an Ethiopian ban on the export of Teff. The Ethiopians learned a hard lesson when they listened to "experts" from the west who "persuaded" them to abandon Teff for maize which sparked off the Ethiopian famine.



Teff is being grown several states in the USA eg Oregon, Nevada, Kansas and Iowa. It's a very hardy crop (but it doesn't like frost) and in the right conditions will produce 4 crops a year. It also produces "hay" for animal feed - llamas and alpacas, apparently, like it better than grass hay.
Click to expand...


Fascinating. I live in the Heartland, in farm country, and have never heard of Teff. I'll have to look for it!
 
Mad Cook said:
"The Food Programme" covered that. There's an Ethiopian ban on the export of Teff. The Ethiopians learned a hard lesson when they listened to "experts" from the west who "persuaded" them to abandon Teff for maize which sparked off the Ethiopian famine.

Teff is being grown several states in the USA eg Oregon, Nevada, Kansas and Iowa. It's a very hardy crop (but it doesn't like frost) and in the right conditions will produce 4 crops a year. It also produces "hay" for animal feed - llamas and alpacas, apparently, like it better than grass hay.
Click to expand...
I wonder if they bothered to teach the Ethiopians to nixtamalize the maize. If not, it is deficient in Niacin.
 
I read a bunch of stuff about Teff today, including how the government wanted to double the export of Teff by 2015. And yadda, yadda, yadda, schools would be built, etc. The problem I have with that is feed your own first, export the rest. For the 20% of under 5s who are under nourished, a school built with a lunch program is not going to happen this year, or next, or the next. Encourage the farmers to produce more, pay them a fair rate, and any excess, after the 20% of under 5s are no longer suffering from malnutrition, then export that.
 
As far as I know, there is nowhere that the left hand is preferred for picking up food. So, if people are picking up food with their hands, use your right hand.
 
It's seen as being rude, in bad form, if you pick up food from a communal dish with your left hand. Why is this? No idea. But this how it is in many eastern countries. Anyways...you want to keep it in mind when visiting that part of the world and sharing a communal meal.
 
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if you must know, many "eastern cultures " use their left hand to wipe their asses.

hence, eat with the other hand.
 
Could be, but I was too discreet to bring that up. Sanitation. It's the reason why you see movie scenes of ancient soldiers shaking hands by grabbing the other soldiers forearm instead of their hand. Sanitation concerns. Initially tho, the handshake was born out of the gesture of showing the other that he was not armed, and that evolved into the handshake.
 
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Gee, and I'm in the 10% of the world population whose dominant hand is the left. For all the disadvantages a leftie may face, being a leftie is the ultimate when it comes to survival of the fittest--lefties have the element of surprise in hand-to-hand combat.
 
PrincessFiona60 said:
Eat with my right hand? Being a lefty, it's MY right hand that does the dirty work.
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That's just habit. If you ever have to eat somewhere people pick up the food with their right hand, I really suggest you try to do that too. In some places people will get grossed out if you use your left hand to handle food from a communal pot or plate.

No one knows what you do in private. ;) I'm sure you wash your hands.

I've had this argument with lefties before. They managed, even though it felt awkward to them.
 
I started out life as a lefty. Unfortunately in the school where I started my education, they wouldn't let me use it. So I can eat with either hand. :angel:
 
Caslon said:
It's seen as being rude, in bad form, if you pick up food from a communal dish with your left hand. Why is this? No idea. But this how it is in many eastern countries. Anyways...you want to keep it in mind when visiting that part of the world and sharing a communal meal.
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It's because the left hand is used for unsavoury personal cleansing and traditionally food was eating by hand from a communal dish. Even in some "modern" westernised families it is still considered bad form to hand food, even on a plate, with the left hand
 
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Mad Cook said:
It's because the left hand is used for unsavoury personal cleansing and traditionally food was eating by had from a communal dish
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Ten percent of the world's population would disagree with that statement that the left hand is used for unsavoury personal cleansing. I'm in that 10 percent. I use scissors with my right hand (and it is darned awkward when cutting out a pattern) only because either (a) there weren't any left-handed scissors available, or (b) my mother didn't think of that when she bought me my first pair of scissors (but then, she didn't think the first thing I would try to cut was the webbing on the lawn chairs, either).:LOL::LOL:
 
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