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Eating Somali food? Don’t forget the banana, or you might get humiliated online

 

 

Here’s the story of the biggest mistake I ever made with a banana

Somali Food_LA Times
A Somali plate of lamb and basmati rice, with a banana. (Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times)

While on assignment in Minneapolis earlier this month, I stopped by Maashaa’allah Restaurant in Cedar-Riverside for my first-ever traditional Somali meal: an enormous $14 rice and lamb plate.

The server brought it out. And then a banana.

A banana?

I tweeted a photo of the enormous platter, with the banana in the corner of the frame. The banana, I added in another tweet, was “brought as an appetizer.”

Little did I know, this would set off an Internet uproar that circled the world. If you are Somali: I am so sorry. I come in peace.

Let me be clear about something upfront: Unlike my acclaimed colleague Jonathan Gold, our resident food critic, who meticulously researches cuisines before writing about them, I am a food idiot.

I like food. But I often know little about what I’m eating. I barely cook, and when I’m on the road, I often file stories from McDonald’s with a side of fries. It’s a weakness, and I am not proud, in the sense that a human Dumpster who will eat anything can’t be proud.

My friends: The food was fantastic. But I made a crucial error. The banana was not brought as an appetizer. You’re supposed to slice it up and eat it with the rice.

The banana is “a thing that comes with all dishes — rice, spaghetti, there’s really no rule,” said Yasin Mohamud, a 28-year-old freelance writer in Minneapolis who immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia when he was 7, and who has written about Minneapolis’ Somali restaurants. “Traditionally if you’re eating a pasta, you take a slice out of it, and eat bites with the meal.” The same goes for rice dishes.

It’s like if I had walked into a burger joint, tweeted a photo of a ketchup bottle and said the server had brought me a fancy drink. Or so I gathered from Twitter.

Read more: Eating Somali food? Don’t forget the banana, or you might get humiliated online

Source: LA Times

 

2 Responses to “Eating Somali food? Don’t forget the banana, or you might get humiliated online”


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