Page 8 - Baking Europe Journal - Winter 2022
P. 8
INGREDIENTS
8 ENSET FRUIT
In search of a secure food supply?
THIS COULD BE
TOP BANANA!
Written by:
Richard Henderson
Sub-editor, Baking Europe
hat are the Highlands that can be eaten. According to one in various forms, the three main local
most famous for? The research paper, titled, The Tree dishes being – kocho, bulla and
Loch Ness Monster or Against Hunger, “enset is very likely amicho.
Ben Nevis, maybe? No, the most unstudied domesticated
the answer is coff ee. I am not talking crop in Africa.” 1 The pulp of the roots and leaf sheaths
about the Scottish Highlands, but are fermented underground for four
rather those in Ethiopia. The story of So, in a time when food might be to six months to make kocho. Spices
how coff ee became such an scarce for a number of reasons: and butter are added and the
important part of Western culture climatic conditions, geo-political resulting mixture is shaped into small
traces its origins all the way back to tensions or infl ationary eff ects on discs, it is then baked. Bulla is
the place from where it was fi rst price, the fact that 60 enset plants harvested from fully matured plants
exported, the medieval Kingdom of might to be able to feed a family of and is used in soups and porridges; it
Kaff a (sounds like coff ee for a good fi ve for a year, suggests we should can even be used to make pancakes.
reason), located on the ‘Roof of the perhaps fi nd out more. 2 Amicho is the boiled root and is
Africa’, in the Ethiopian Highlands. similar to the familiar potato.
But although we are all familiar with Despite its short name, the enset is
coff ee, I doubt the same can be said anything but in terms of stature, it’s as Furthermore, it’s not just the human
for the enset plant, a little known tall as a house and lives for 10-12 population that can benefi t: the
relative of the banana that is native to years. During this time several leaves of the tree can be given to
the region, but rather than the fruit it hundred kilos of starchy vegetable livestock as animal fodder and it can
is the trunk and root underground like tissue can be harvested and eaten also be used in packaging. 1
“Enset is very likely the most unstudied
domesticated crop in Africa.”
BAKINGEUROPE Winter 2022/2023
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