Somali food: canjeero, bariis iskukaris, xawaash and the daily meals

The flavour: xawaash

Most Somali cooking is built on xawaash, a spice blend of cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and turmeric. Each family and region mixes its own (Ifrah F. Ahmed, interview on her cookbook, via inkl).

All meat is halal. Pork is forbidden (Somali cuisine, Wikipedia, citing Falola and Jean-Jacques 2016).

Breakfast (quraac)

• Canjeero or laxoox: a thin, spongy pancake. It is smaller, thinner and sweeter than Ethiopian injera. It is eaten with ghee and sugar, honey, or sesame oil (Wikipedia).
• Shaah: black tea boiled with sugar, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, often with milk (shaah cadeeys) (Wikipedia, citing Ifrah Ahmed in the Washington Post, 2021).
• Muufo: a thick maize flatbread baked in a clay oven (tinaar), popular in the south (Wikipedia).

Lunch (qado): the main meal

• Bariis iskukaris: rice "cooked together" with onion, tomato, xawaash and meat. It is a national staple.
• Baasto: pasta, brought during Italian rule in the south and now made the Somali way, with suugo (sauce) spiced with xawaash. Cookbook author Ifrah Ahmed calls it "distinctly Somali" (inkl).
• "Federation": rice and pasta together on one plate.
• Hilib and maraq: meat (goat, mutton, beef, camel or fish) and stews.
• Sabaayad: a layered flatbread, also called kimis or ceesh in some regions.

Sources: Somali cuisine, Wikipedia.

Dinner (casho)

A lighter meal, often late. Common dishes are cambuulo (slow-cooked beans with sorghum, butter and sugar) and bread with tea. A glass of cardamom milk often ends the day (Wikipedia).

By region

In the farming south, stiff porridges of sorghum or maize (soor, asida) are everyday food. Benadiri cooking in Mogadishu, Marka and Barawa has its own sweets, such as gashaato (coconut sweets) (Wikipedia, citing Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi 2001).

Ramadan and Eid

At sunset during Ramadan (afur), tables fill with sambuus (triangle pastries), bur (fried dough) and bajiye (fritters) (Wikipedia).

At Eid and weddings, xalwo is served. It is a firm, glossy sweet of sugar, cornstarch, ghee, cardamom and nutmeg, once beaten for hours with wooden paddles. Not offering xalwo to a guest is a serious lapse in hospitality (Asad Hussein, Sahan Journal, 2021).

Somali food abroad

Minneapolis is the US centre of xalwo-making. Bakeries on Lake Street ship it to Ohio and Utah, and a 40-pound wedding bucket sells for about $200. One shop expected to sell 5,000 to 10,000 pounds for a single Eid (Sahan Journal, 2021).

Why it matters

Somali food tells the story of the coast: spices from the Indian Ocean trade, pasta from the Italian years, grains of the river farms. The same meals are shared from Mogadishu to Minneapolis.