James Bruce

This grain is commonly sown all over Abyssinia, where it seems to thrive equally on all sorts of ground; from it is made the bread which is commonly used throughout Abyssinia. The Abyssinians, indeed, have plenty of wheat, and some of it of an excellent quality: They likewise make as fine wheat-bread as any in the world, both for colour and for taste; but the use of wheat-bread is chiefly confined to people of the first rank. On the other hand, Teff is used by all sorts of people from the king downwards, and there are kinds of it which are esteemed fully as much as wheat. The best of these is as white as flour, exceedingly light, and easily digested. There are others of a browner colour, and some nearly black; this last is the food of soldiers and servants. The cause of this variation of colour is manifold; the Teff that grows on light ground having a moderate degree of moisture, but never dry; the lighter the earth is in which it grows, the better and whiter the Teff will be; the husk too is thinner. That Teff, too, that ripens before the heavy rains, is usually whiter and finer, and a great deal depends upon sifting the husk from it after it is reduced to flour, by bruising or breaking it in a stone-mill. This is repeated several times with great care, in the finest kind of bread, which is found in the houses of all people of rank or substance. The manner of making it is by taking a broad earthen jar, and having made a lump of it with water, they put it into an earthen jar at some distance from the fire, where it remains till it begins to ferment, or turn sour; they then bake it into cakes of a circular form, and about two feet in diameter: It is of a spungy, soft quality, and not a disagreeable sourish taste. Two of these cakes a-day, and a coarse cotton cloth once a-year, are the wages of a common servant.

Teff

London Publish’d Feb.^y 9.^th 1790. by G. Robinson & Co.

At their banquets of raw meat, the flesh being cut in small bits, is wrapt up in pieces of this bread, with a proportion of fossile salt and Cayenne pepper. Before the company sits down to eat, a number of these cakes of different qualities are placed one upon the other, in the same manner as our plates, and the principal people, sitting first down, eat the white Teff; the second, or coarser sort, serves the second-rate people that succeed them, and the third is for the servants. Every man, when he is done, dries or wipes his fingers upon the bread which he is to leave for his successor, for they have no towels, and this is one of the most beastly customs of the whole.

The Teff bread, when well toasted, is put into a large jar, after being broken into small pieces, and warm water poured upon it. It is then set by the fire, and frequently stirred for several days, the mouth of the jar being close covered. After being allowed to settle three or four days, it acquires a sourish taste, and is what they call Bouza, or the common beer of the country. The bouza in Atbara is made in the same manner, only, instead of Teff, cakes of barley-meal are employed; both are very bad liquors, but the worst is that made of barley.

The plant is herbaceous: from a number of weak leaves proceeds a stalk of about twenty-eight inches in length, not perfectly straight, smooth, but jointed or knotted at particular distances. This stalk is not much thicker than that of a carnation or jellyflower. About eight inches from the top, a head is formed of a number of small branches, upon which it carries the fruit and flowers; the latter of which is small, of a crimson colour, and scarcely perceptible by the naked eye, but from the opposition of that colour. The pistil is divided into two, seemingly attached to the germ of the fruit, and has at each end small capillaments forming a brush. The stamina are three in number, two on the lower side of the pistil, and one on the upper. These are, each of them, crowned with two oval stigmata, at first green, but after, crimson. The fruit is formed in a capsula, consisting of two conical, hollow leaves, which, when closed, seems to compose a small conical pod, pointed at the top. The fruit, or seed, is oblong, and is not so large as the head of the smallest pin, yet it is very prolific, and produces these seeds in such quantity as to yield a very abundant crop in the quantity of meal.

Whether this grain was ever known to the Greeks and Romans, is what we are no where told. Indeed, the various grains made use of in antiquity, are so lamely and poorly described, that, unless it is a few of the most common, we cannot even guess at the rest. Pliny mentions several of them, but takes no notice of any of their qualities, but medicinal ones; some he specifies as growing in Gaul, others in the Campania of Rome, but takes no notice of those of Ethiopia or Egypt. Among these there is one which he calls Tiphe, but says not whence it came; the name would induce us to believe that this was Teff, but we can only venture this as a conjecture not supported. But it is very improbable, connected as Egypt and Ethiopia were from the first ages, both by trade and religion, that a grain of such consequence to one nation should be utterly unknown to the other. It is not produced in the low or hot country, the Kolla, that is, in the borders of it; for no grain can grow, as I have already said, in the Kolla or Mazaga itself; but in place of Teff, in these borders, there grows a black grain called Tocusso. The stalk of this is scarce a foot long; it has four divisions where the grain is produced, and seems to be a species of the meiem msalib, or gramen crucis, the grass of the cross. Of this a very black bread is made, ate only by the poorest sort; but though it makes worse bread, I think it makes better bouza.

Some have thought, from the frequent use of Teff, hath come that disease of worms which I have mentioned in the article Cusso. But I am inclined to think this is not the case, because the Gibbertis, or Mahometans, born in Abyssinia, all use Teff in the same proportion as the Christians, yet none of these are troubled with worms. And from this I should be led to think that this disease arises rather from eating raw meat, which the Mahometans do not, and therefore are not affected with this disorder as the Christians are.