A taste of Ethiopia in Leipzig, Germany

LEIPZIG, GERMANY – Take ginger, chili, red pepper – and seven more spicy spices. The result is Berbere, a signal red powder that gives Ethiopian food an incomparably fiery note. Even as a child Floorgne Assefa Zewdie – in Germany briefly called Tsige – loved the spicy chicken Doro Wot in her grandmother’s restaurant. Together with hard-boiled eggs and cream cheese on the sour flatbread Injera, this was a feast in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, which was actually reserved for the holidays.

In the Addis Café on the Brüderstraße, the Ethiopian has been reviving her childhood since the summer: Buna from the country of origin of the Arabica bean, served at home in a ceremony with the scent of glowing incense, various braised vegetables on a large plate, hot Soups, Homemade Ginger Tea: Africa is close in the University quarter in the middle of the cold season.

In addition, the café and its CEO Gerd Birkenmeier, chairman of the city twinning association Leipzig-Addis Abeba, regularly invite to so-called science dinners. Next Wednesday there will be a hot and controversial topic on the agenda. Under the title “The Glyphosate Lie: How to Mortalise ourselves”, Monsanto tribunal professor Monika Krüger will discuss how the herbicide gets into food and causes damage to health. On the other hand, it raises the question of whether the nutrition of the growing world population without pesticides is even guaranteed. An authentic Ethiopian buffet is available from 6 pm to 8 pm, starting at 8.15 pm.

It took a long time for Tsige, who came to Germany in 1995, to fulfill her dream of owning a restaurant. Without the German professor and Ethiopia connoisseur Birkenmeier, who acts as a co-partner, it probably would not have worked. Again and again the authorities of the African woman threw stones in the way.

“My grandma was a strong woman. She raised me alone with her four sons who were uncle and brothers at the same time, “says Tsige. “She supported the whole family and worked hard. There was nothing better for me than running after her in the kitchen. ”

The grandmother with the restaurant in the business district of the Ethiopian capital remained her role model when it came to perseverance in her own life later. Because the road was long, until she opened the Addis Café: First, she cooked for friends, then in the community college, then at the founding of the city partnership Leipzig / Addis Ababa and at events of intercultural weeks.

The Ethiopian remembers the first evening in her own restaurant as if it were today. “There were 100 people who were connected to my dream. It stunned me, “she says. Some – the professor with his wife, the interior designer and her two daughters, who stood by her day and night, immortalized her. Their names are in Amharic characters above the bar, which is otherwise as cool and withdrawn as the restaurant manager.

2nd Science Dinner on November 29th at 6 pm, Brüderstraße 39, 20 Euro, binding registration under [email protected]

By Stephanie of Aretin
Source: lvz.de