Injera, turmeric, and ice cream: small businesses stick together during Covid-19
The Ethiopian Food Truck is dishing out authentic Ethiopian food throughout the Denver area as they adapt to Covid-19.
They recently teamed up with MyKing’s Ice Cream, a new shop in Denver’s Skyland neighborhood that we visited a few weeks ago, to give customers an Ethiopian lunch followed by a scoop of MyKing’s signature ice cream for dessert.
If you’re new to Ethiopian cuisine, co-owner Yoseph Assefa describes it as “a very savory and healthy type of food, with a lot of exciting flavors in it.” Those flavors are due to the signature Ethiopian spice blend berbere. You’ll also find a lot of turmeric and curry.
Fans of Ethiopian food will also recognize the flatbread called injera. It’s made from a grain called teff and fermented over 3 days. “It has a little bit of a sourdough taste to it,” says Assefa, “it’s a perfect match with the other options that we have.” Injera is typically served with everything, and is used as a vessel to eat the other food it’s served with.
Assefa started The Ethiopian Food Truck in 2015 with his business partner Fetien Gebre-Michael. They are both from Ethiopia. “We thought a food truck would be the best way to share our food, share our recipes," Assefa says. "We felt like our food just spreads the culture all over Colorado.”
As with any small business, The Ethiopian Food Truck has had its struggles, from first finding a truck and getting it up to code, to today’s Covid-19 epidemic. “It’s a challenge that everybody’s dealing with, Covid has just completely changed the business,” Assefa says. “We’re kind of adapting to it and doing what we can.”
The truck’s food is cooked fresh every day and uses recipes passed down from Assefa and Gebre-Michael’s parents and grandparents.