Ethiopians don't use cutlery, preferring to eat with their right hands. Meals usually begin with hand washing: a decorated metal or earthenware jug is brought to the table and a child or adult will then pour water over guests' outstretched hands into a small basin. Ethiopia's national dish is wot, a spicy stew with many varieties. Wot can be made of meat, fish or vegetables, although chicken and beef are the most common bases. The base is cooked with onions and red peppers in a spicy, curry-like sauce or berebere, which contains garlic, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, fennel seed and coriander. A similar yet milder meat stew is alicha, which is flavoured with onions and ginger instead of berebere. Before wot, Ethiopians sometimes also eat a bland appetizer of curds and whey. Wot is served on injera a large, bread made from teff flour that has been fermented as dough for several days. A server spoons different types of wot onto one injera. Diners eat communally, tearing off pieces of the bread and using them to scoop the stew. Only the right hand is used for eating. Pork is forbidden for Ethiopian Christians, Muslims and Jews. Because there are so many fasting days in the year, Ethiopia has a well-developed vegetarian cuisine, largely based on beans. While Ethiopians love butter and oily foods, they eat very few sweets. The exception is honey, which is often served as a dessert.
When guests arrive, the host offers tea or coffee, perhaps served with popcorn, which is a popular snack.
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