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EveryMasala

Next: 28 Sept 2027

Meskel

Ethiopia's festival of the finding of the True Cross, with a bonfire (demera) and feasts of doro wat and tej, flavoured with berbere.

This is an image from
Photo: DanielGirmaTsige, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Meskel

Meskel is celebrated at the end of the rainy season with a great pile of branches, topped with a cross and daisies, lit at dusk. Families prepare doro wat, the festival stew of chicken and boiled eggs, cooked slowly with onion, spiced butter (niter kibbeh) and berbere, a red mix of chilli, fenugreek, ginger, garlic, korarima (Ethiopian cardamom), ajwain and other spices. Injera is the base on which the meal is laid out. Tej, honey wine, is flavoured with the leaves of the gesho shrub.

The spices

BerbereThe red Ethiopian blend.KorarimaKorarima, Ethiopian cardamom.FenugreekA key part of berbere.Black cuminIn spiced butter and bread.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Meskel" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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