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> It makes no sense because the food is incredibly delicious, approachable, and unique. Do they have fast food offerings like wraps and pies? Also, what do you

> It makes no sense because the food is incredibly delicious, approachable, and unique. Do they have fast food offerings like wraps and pies? Also, what do you mean by "approachable"? Convenient?

n8cpdx 5y ago
Approachable meaning it doesn’t take a giant leap for an American to consume it - it isn’t bugs (ants, grasshoppers, locusts) and it isn’t raw fish. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things - Americans do in fact eat those things, but there can be some mental hurdles around eating something that is identifiably an insect. The Ethiopian food I’ve seen is injira and various combinations of spices, chicken, beef, eggs, and common vegetables. The least “approachable” part is that you eat it with your hands, but in practice it’s not any different from a burrito or taco. A fast food take on Ethiopian would almost certainly include a wrap made with injera, maybe tibs, and gomen wat. Doro wat would work as well. In restaurants it is often served platter style, which is directly analogous to many Chinese restaurants in the US.
- FerociousTimes 5y ago
  By "approachable", you mean more familiar and less adventurous or exotic, right? What makes Mexican cuisine popular beside the usual reasons like taste and flavors is that it lends itself very well to the operations of fast food businesses with all those diverse and rich offerings that make the life of the business owner easier and enjoyable than with other challenging cuisines like that of Horn of Africa to adopt to the type of operation seen in this kind of establishments.
  - n8cpdx 5y ago
    I don’t think that really makes sense. There are plenty of popular/commercially successful cuisines that involve long prep times or intricate procedures. And Ethiopian cuisine doesn’t have to be super difficult to make - I took a class last year and made doro wat and gomen wat. The teacher (who immigrated from Ethiopia) made some adaptations so the recipe could be made within class time, but also told us how to do it with a slower traditional process. And like I said, approachable means approachable to western audiences. In other words, less of a hurdle than asking people to eat bugs. I don’t see anything about the Ethiopian cuisine at restaurants that explains why those restaurants aren’t more successful or common (like Thai, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Sushi, etc). It’s not really about adventurism or exoticism because I think Ethiopian is plenty adventurous and exotic for probably a sizable portion, if not majority, of Americans.
    - ggm 5y ago
      Eating 4 "curries" from a shared platter on grey-purple rubbery pancake you tear up requires people to overcome their "yuk" instinct, for touching food other people are also touching. It breaches the "no double dipping" rule. So the first approximation here might be, individual portions. Once you morph to serving single-serve plates from a communal platter, its down the road to wrapping the meat and veg stew to make an enchilada and calling it "ethiopian tacos" or something.
      - FerociousTimes 5y ago
        > its down the road to wrapping the meat and veg stew to make an enchilada and calling it "ethiopian tacos" or something. and then they have to outdo the established items in that food category from other international cuisines like burritos and pizzas, and the outlook doesn't look very promising for the Ethiopian fast food.
    - FerociousTimes 5y ago
      We weren't discussing preparation times or elaborate procedures, we were discussing convenience, portability and service time, or in other words; overall friendliness, and those factors are what matter in running a fast food restaurant and for your information Mexican fast food preparation takes long time for some items but the service should be quick for the customer for the business to flourish. Most of the cuisines you cited in your defense of Ethiopian cuisine has robust and rich fast food offerings esp. those of Mexico, Italy and China, a point which is lacking in that of Ethiopia and thus poses a challenge to enjoy wide adoption and achieve the status of mass-market fast food category.

> It makes no sense because the food is incredibly delicious, approachable, and unique. Do they have fast food offerings like wraps and pies? Also, what do you mean by "approachable"? Convenient?

n8cpdx 5y ago

Approachable meaning it doesn’t take a giant leap for an American to consume it - it isn’t bugs (ants, grasshoppers, locusts) and it isn’t raw fish. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things - Americans do in fact eat those things, but there can be some mental hurdles around eating something that is identifiably an insect. The Ethiopian food I’ve seen is injira and various combinations of spices, chicken, beef, eggs, and common vegetables. The least “approachable” part is that you eat it with your hands, but in practice it’s not any different from a burrito or taco. A fast food take on Ethiopian would almost certainly include a wrap made with injera, maybe tibs, and gomen wat. Doro wat would work as well. In restaurants it is often served platter style, which is directly analogous to many Chinese restaurants in the US.

FerociousTimes 5y ago
By "approachable", you mean more familiar and less adventurous or exotic, right? What makes Mexican cuisine popular beside the usual reasons like taste and flavors is that it lends itself very well to the operations of fast food businesses with all those diverse and rich offerings that make the life of the business owner easier and enjoyable than with other challenging cuisines like that of Horn of Africa to adopt to the type of operation seen in this kind of establishments.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  I don’t think that really makes sense. There are plenty of popular/commercially successful cuisines that involve long prep times or intricate procedures. And Ethiopian cuisine doesn’t have to be super difficult to make - I took a class last year and made doro wat and gomen wat. The teacher (who immigrated from Ethiopia) made some adaptations so the recipe could be made within class time, but also told us how to do it with a slower traditional process. And like I said, approachable means approachable to western audiences. In other words, less of a hurdle than asking people to eat bugs. I don’t see anything about the Ethiopian cuisine at restaurants that explains why those restaurants aren’t more successful or common (like Thai, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Sushi, etc). It’s not really about adventurism or exoticism because I think Ethiopian is plenty adventurous and exotic for probably a sizable portion, if not majority, of Americans.
  - ggm 5y ago
    Eating 4 "curries" from a shared platter on grey-purple rubbery pancake you tear up requires people to overcome their "yuk" instinct, for touching food other people are also touching. It breaches the "no double dipping" rule. So the first approximation here might be, individual portions. Once you morph to serving single-serve plates from a communal platter, its down the road to wrapping the meat and veg stew to make an enchilada and calling it "ethiopian tacos" or something.
    - FerociousTimes 5y ago
      > its down the road to wrapping the meat and veg stew to make an enchilada and calling it "ethiopian tacos" or something. and then they have to outdo the established items in that food category from other international cuisines like burritos and pizzas, and the outlook doesn't look very promising for the Ethiopian fast food.
  - FerociousTimes 5y ago
    We weren't discussing preparation times or elaborate procedures, we were discussing convenience, portability and service time, or in other words; overall friendliness, and those factors are what matter in running a fast food restaurant and for your information Mexican fast food preparation takes long time for some items but the service should be quick for the customer for the business to flourish. Most of the cuisines you cited in your defense of Ethiopian cuisine has robust and rich fast food offerings esp. those of Mexico, Italy and China, a point which is lacking in that of Ethiopia and thus poses a challenge to enjoy wide adoption and achieve the status of mass-market fast food category.