Clay Pot Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico
“This stuffing of food in your fellow diners’ face is called gursha, and that’s what you do to show your affection and respect. Try this at the Waffle House some time and prepare for awkwardness.” ~Anthony Bourdain, Season 6 of Parts Unknown Eating Ethiopian cuisine involves eating with your hands. That can also be said about eating pizza, sandwiches, tacos, gyros and a number of other foods common to the American palate. But what about being fed from someone else’s hand? In Ethiopia, that practice is called gursha. Gursha is a term for the Ethiopian tradition of hand-feeding a bite of food, wrapped in injera, to someone else as a gesture of love, friendship, and respect. It signifies hospitality, often extended to guests or loved ones, with larger bites symbolizing a stronger bond. Bourdain noted that hospitality is a way of living in the “Land of Origins” (signifying Ethiopia’s status as a cradle of humanity and civilization): “Here, as in much of Ethiopia, Muslims and Christians live side by side. … It’s a peculiar history of peaceful coexistence here, of which Ethiopians are quite proud. .” In the handful of times I’ve dined at Ethiopian restaurants, I’ve never been compelled to engage…
