Tibs

Addis Ababa. Addis Ababa eats from a shared platter of injera, the spongy sour teff flatbread, spread with wot stews. Orthodox fasting built a deep vegan repertoire here, and chickpea-flour shiro is its everyday comfort, seasoned with berbere - though on fasting days the spiced butter niter kibbeh gives way to oil.

Ethiopia. Ethiopia broke the Scramble for Africa at Adwa in 1896 and was never made a European colony, though Italy did occupy it from 1936 to 1941, and Liberia holds a similar claim. Its cuisine stands equally apart, built around injera, a tangy fermented teff flatbread that doubles as plate and utensil for an array of spiced stews called wat. The fiery berbere spice blend and spiced clarified butter niter kibbeh give the food its signature depth, and long fasting traditions have produced a rich vegan repertoire.

Africa. The structure repeats across most of the continent: one starch and one sauce. A grain or root is cooked stiff, torn or rolled by hand, and used to carry a stew of leaves, groundnut, okra or fish, usually from a shared bowl and with the right hand. UNESCO listings have followed that logic, inscribing couscous in 2020 as a shared Maghreb tradition and Ivorian attieke in 2024.