Canjeero

Each “bread-eating” country makes this simple griddlecake using the grains it has available. It is cooked on a hot plate or in a vertical clay oven and lacking any other fantasy. The most sober of sober. A sort of purist “rough draft” that goes back to the origins of time in countries where bread exists. It is certainly the equivalent of the large sourdough balls of bread cooked once a week using high-extraction flours in the village ovens in the countryside.

In Somalia, this original bread bears different names -- canjeero, lohoh, lahoh, anjeero, etc.) -- but it always consists of a mixture of sorghum and wheat and an “undomesticated” fermentation. The batter is prepared the day before and left in the same container overnight, the same one that has been used to make the batter for days or even months. The remnants of these former preparations therefore provide the leavening for the new batter, creating a long uninterrupted chain that links the present moment to the beginning of time. In this way, the bread serves as the peoples’ memory. It is as if it calls them back to their origins. Born of the earth and destined to return.

Canjeero is eaten throughout the day by rolling it around food or tearing off bits for snacks and for hardier meals as well. The Somalians drink a lot of black tea, and canjeero is a fixed ornament with it; it is even at the heart of some religious ceremonies. For special occasions, it is dressed up in fancy attire. The griddlecake is sugar, enriched with eggs, and called malawah, served at the moment of breaking fast during Ramadan. There is a similar version in Djibouti, which shares a common border with Somalia. There it bears the name ambadur. Onions, milk, curry and nigella seeds are added to the sorghum and wheat batter.