The seasonal pumpkin-tapioca dessert at New Kam Fong

From the look of things, y'all have a strong interest in vegetarian food. Yesterday, the Y&H blog had some of its highest traffic numbers ever for a Monday, which, of course, is not why we do these kind of themed days. We do them in the name of dietery balance, the environment, human health, and the animals!

OK, sure, we also do them for the traffic.

Regardless, you seemed to enjoy the change of pace, even on the weekly Y&H newsletter, which yesterday was similarly devoted to veg eats. (You can sign up for the newsletter on the right, if you'd like.) One reader, Caroline, e-mailed to say:

Thank you so much for devoting this week’s newsletter to vegetarian/vegan dining! My boyfriend is a vegan and I am a carnivorous foodie. I almost lost it on Sunday morning when we couldn’t find a vegan pancake mix at Whole Foods. Keep the veg/vegan articles coming and maybe someday I’ll be able to go out on a date with him someplace other than Chipotle!

If you aren't a newsletter subscriber you missed a number of other veg options that Y&H has recently highlighted, like the following:

• The Match Point pizza at Comet Ping-Pong;
• The vegetarian option at the Gondar fine dining service at Almaz;
• The plate of Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas at Cantina Mexicana;
• The veggie roti at Caribbean Palace in Takoma Park;
• The cheddar tart at Eatonville;
• The french fries at Inox; (yes, I said the french fries; one bite and you'll understand.)
• The "Cornucopia" dessert at Hook (assuming the sugar topping isn't torched).

Rest assured, Y&H will return to this vegetarian topic again soon, regularly even. Perhaps I tease too much about the self-righteousness too often tied to ethical eating, but I'm also aware that it is important — and that our future may even depend on it.

As a small thank you for your continued presence on this blog, I leave you with this sweet sweet from New Kam Fong, a new Chinese eatery at 2400 University Blvd. in Wheaton. I didn't actually order this dessert; the waitress just brought it to us at the end of the meal. If your server doesn't do the same, ask for a small bowl of this seasonal treat, a mix of tiny tapioca balls, coconut, pumpkin, and God knows what else.

It was simple, light, sweet, fresh, and delicious.

Mike and Elizabeth Bober, Y&H's friends over at Capital Spice, were the ones to introduce me to the Gondar Fine Dining service at Almaz, the subject of this week's column.

On their blog, the husband-and-wife team have posted a bite-by-bite break down of our dinner together at Almaz, and I think, between our two pieces, you get a good idea of what to expect with the Gondar service. Their recap, in particular, includes one moment that I had wanted to write about, too (but ran out of space!):

We made a tactical error when our servers came by to inquire about what we enjoyed most: we answered. In short order, we found ourselves facing another helping of each of our favorite dishes. Next time, we’ll know to keep quiet – or offer our compliments with an apology that we’re too full for seconds.

This was an awkward moment for us at the table, but once I talked to Jabriel Ballentine, the man who created Gondar for Almaz, I learned that it was just part of the hospitality required of the host. If guests in an Ethiopian Orthodox home say they like a particular dish or dishes, you, as host, are practically required to bring them more. Otherwise, you would be failing to serve and thus, in a sense, abandoning your religious beliefs.

This is where, I thought, the economics of a traditional restaurant would clash with the religious tenets behind the Gondar service. I suggested to Ballentine that overserving your guests, night after night with Gondar, would create enormous amounts of waste. Waste, of course, is anathema to restaurant owners.

I asked Ballentine if Gondar could sustain itself over the weeks and months with such waste. The host just paused, smiled at my question, and told me politely that wastage is built into the cost of the meal.

Spoken like a man who knows how to balance religion with economics.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Kitfo, of course, isn't the only raw meat offered in Ethiopian cooking (or non-cooking). There's also tere saga, sometimes known as kurt, but that is much harder to find in U.S. Ethiopian restaurants. I've only seen it at Abay Market and Meaza. But back in Ethiopia, tere sega is considered a traditional ceremonial dish, often seen at weddings.

I mention these two dishes as prelude to a question I hadn't thought about until this week: Why do Ethiopians eat so much raw meat? The question was raised to me by Jabriel Ballentine, a native of the Virgin Islands who's doing some consulting work for Almaz on U Street.  He knew the answer.

He tells me that raw meat was a war-time invention in Ethiopia — or perhaps "necessity" is a better word, given that troops that cooked their meats were sniffed out by the enemy and slaughtered in their sleep. Ballentine said the troops finally learned it was the smell of roasting meats, and the smoke from their fires, that gave them away. Raw meat, then, was an act of self-preservation.

Or at least it was a century or centuries ago. Ballentine couldn't remember exactly which war inspired the raw-meat cuisine.

But sometimes Ballentine likes to tease his Ethiopian friends.  "The war is over now," he'll tell them. "We can cook the meat now."

Just to double-check this tale, I consulted Marcus Samuelsson's excellent cookbook, The Soul of a New Cuisine. There, on page 295, is a recipe for "steak tartare." (I guess when you're a celebrity chef with a book to sell to America, you prefer fine-dining terms over those icky foreign words.)

The first sentence of Samuelsson's recipe for kitfo reads: "Legend has it that kitfo — the Ethiopian Steak Tartare that inspired this recipe — came about during one of the many wars between the Christian Gurage and the Muslims, when the Gurages were hiding out in the mountains and needed to develop quick-cooking meals they could prepare without attracting attention from big, smoking fires."

There's either some truth here or a wonderful Ethiopian myth.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery