Bulatovich:
A file of cooks, dressed in shirts clasped at the waist, carried in a great number of earthenware pots of various sizes, with foods. The chief cook, a rather beautiful woman, dressed more neatly than the others, with silver ear-rings and a silver necklace on the neck, removed the cloth from our baskets. The Asalafi of the Ras (a special post which in translation means "he who serves the food") dropped down on his knees in front of the basket and, having tasted each dish brought to him by the cook, began to take them out on chunks of injera and place them before the Ras. The Asalafi, a strikingly handsome young man of the pure Semitic type, is a descendant of a Tigrean family: he was raised at the court of the Ras and, probably, will receive some more important appointment, i.e., a company or a regiment.
For me, the Ras prepared a special dinner, which, in his opinion, should satisfy the taste of a European. Here is the menu: 1) fried chicken, 2) thin slices of meat fried in a pan, 3) beef ribs grilled on hot coals, 4) afilye51 -- an Abyssinian national dish, 5) meat that was scraped and boiled in butter, and 6) soft-boiled eggs.
With an air of great importance, Gomtes, page of the Ras, carried these dishes in small enamelled cups, hiding them under his skirt, in order that some evil eye not spot them. He placed them before me on a basket. I was hungry and, to the great satisfaction of the Ras, I ate everything with great appetite: both the boiled and the fried meat, and the soft-boiled eggs, and the rest.
When we had eaten half our dinner, other honored guests began to be admitted behind the curtain -- commanders of regiments and senior officers. Finally, they gave us coffee in miniature china cups without handles and then opened the doors, through which an endless file of other guests began to enter. They appeared decorously, not hurrying, having wrapped their clothes around their waist and legs. Holding the free end in their left hand, they gracefully dropped to the floor, distributing themselves in tight circles around baskets, on which were laid in piles breadless lat-cakes of injera (some slices of it were soaked in a pepper sauce). Soon the dining hall was filled with a motley crowd of banqueters. Above each circle of diners, one of the servants, leaning over from the weight, held a large piece of beef. They passed to everyone a long knife mounted in ivory. Having selected a piece of meat, each, in order, sliced it and ate, very adroitly slicing pieces at their very teeth by a motion of the knife from below upward that was so fast that I positively did not understand how their lips and teeth remained in tact.
A line of wine servers adroitly gave the banqueters huge horn goblets of mead through the whole room. A traveling singer appeared, and standing in the middle of the room, sang heroic songs and improvisations in honor of the Ras, with the accompaniment of an instrument similar to a violin.
As soon as the first set of diners had satisfied themselves, they got up on at signal from the agafari and left. In their place, their immediately appeared another set, and after it a third, and, finally, a fourth. The Ras himself and his honored guests continued sitting in their places the whole time, carrying on pleasant conversation among themselves and draining small decanters of tej (mead) one after another. They also served red wine -- "Bordeaux" -- as the Ras called it -- and a local vodka distilled from mead.
Only at two o'clock in the afternoon did we leave the dinner which we had sat down to at 9 o'clock in the morning.
