Happy Easter to our Eritrean & Ethiopian friends!

For those of you who are not familiar with the East African culture, Easter for many Eritreans and Ethiopians is based on the Coptic Orthodox Calendar. It consists of a 40 day fast of no meat and no dairy. The lent is to honor the 40 days and 40 nights fasting of the Lord Christ. The Twinship has to admit, we didn’t do the fast this year, but our mama and baba Twinship did, so we can live vicariously through them.

After the 40 day lent, our culture celebrates by eating lamb and other meats. The Twinship doesn’t eat lamb (we can fill you in as to why later), so when we were younger, living at home, our mom would make us spicy  and delicious kitcha.  Kitcha is a combination of shredded wheat or flour bread,   berbere, and clarified butter and you can serve it with plain yogurt or greek yogurt. Check out our mom making the traditional Eritrean cuisine below.

And so,  Eritreans and Ethiopians end the night dancing to their traditional music and drinking boon (really, really strong traditional coffee).

So, won’t you join us, shikorina (darling in Tigrenya)?

xoxo,

Feven & Helena

P.S. click here if you want to hear some fun Eritrean music.

Related articles

• Twinship Bombshell of the Week – East African Women (fevenandhelena.com)
• Happy Orthodox Easter (arhitekturaplus.wordpress.com)