What is the name of the Mideastern fruit that looks roughly like an avocado, but is about the size of a medium watermelon?

If the bread looked like this it is injera or Ethiopean flat bread and it tastes like a sponge.

I don’t know about the fruit.

Wow!
Yup, that’s it, @janbb. It tastes like a sponge? It seemed very moist.
I need to form a local “Adventures in Eating” group where I can share expense and experience with some like-minded people.

Sponges can be moist. :-) I had Ethiopian food for the first time about a year ago and I liked the food but the bread kind of grossed me out. It’s moist but tasteless and grayish…..The spiced veggie dishes were great though and I liked the scooping it up with the bread; just would have been nicer with a bread like naan.

The fruit sounds like a durian. Did it stink? Durian tastes like a cross between a banana and an onion, but has a smell so strong that it’s banned in enclosed spaces like subways in some Asian countries.

Injera is used as both a plate and an eating implement in Ethiopia. You put your food in the middle and tear pieces off the edges to scoop it up, working your way in. It tastes something like a cross between rye bread and a crepe, and has the odd texture of rubber carpet underpadding.

@SmashTheState “rubber carpet underpadding” – Exactly!

CREPE!
Yes, @SmashTheState, it looked like a huge purple crepe. I knew there was something in my brain that related.
Rye bread is good. Do you find the texture distasteful?

The fruit did not stink, it was halved, and it was 12+ inches tall, at least 6” wide.
Could be a vegetable.

@ibstubro The shape sounds squash-like. It could also be a melon. (Winter melon, for example, is quite oblong, although it’s the wrong colour.)

And I love injera. Took a while to get used to the odd texture, but the flavour is worth it. I don’t find it bland at all. It has a strong sour taste akin to sourdough (which I also love).

I didn’t see evidence that is was a ground layer, @SmashTheState, i.e. white on one side, irregular shape. Mildly pear shaped, green, bumpy. There was a core like a kiwi, and surrounding that material that looked much like the core, but had yellow spots embedded.

Now I’ll have to try injera. Suggestions what I should try it with?

These were, like, 16” across. Is that family sized?

Go to an Ethiopian restaurant. Ethiopian cuisine is very different from even other African cuisines, with its own spices and flavour profiles, and is best made by people from Ethiopia. If you really want to give it a try for yourself, search for “dora wat” or “habesha” for traditional Ethiopian foods which are not too hard to make. The oddest thing I found was the way they add hard-boiled eggs to almost everything from soups to stews.

16” is average size for injera. It’s for one person. The whole meal is served on the injera (the bubbles in the injera help hold liquids from stews and such) and you tear off pieces from the edges to scoop up the food in the middle. You don’t use fork, knife, or spoon.

Injera has a very disturbing flesh-like texture to me. I am not a fan.

I suspect the fruit that you saw was a jackfruit They can be quite large (the durian also gets quite large, but it’s covered in very distinctive spikes).

Probably Jackfruit, as I encountered it in a Global Market. Most of the inventory seemed to have a Mideastern orientation.

You could also try Injera with any type of thick stew (like Chile) or a veggie stew like Ratatoille. Anything that isn’t too watery and can be picked up by hand.

You could use it with Babaganoushe or even tuna fish, for that matter.

There’s no law that says it MUST ONLY be used with Ethiopian foods. However, I think that part of the reason why it pairs so well with Ethiopian food is because much of it is really really spicy and the blandness of the Injera is a welcome contrast.

But it may just be that I’m rather sensitive to overly hot (peppery) food. I just don’t like it. It just totally overwhelms the tastebuds and burns my mouth.

The last time I ate in an Ethiopian restaurant I was with like-minded friends who also weren’t fond of overly hot food and we specified that when ordering. We said we didn’t mind at all if they repeated the milder offerings since they obviously prepare a specific number of dishes each time and they’re typically spread out around the perimeter of a large platter.

But, we still ended up with about half of them being way too hot for our palates so am not inclined to repeat that experience soon.

We really enjoyed the milder ones we had and would gladly have doubled them. They were that delicious. But the restaurant decided that they knew better than our own judgement and the majority of the really hot food was left on the plate. And it was not an inexpensive meal either.

But, if you enjoy mouth searing dishes, you’d probably enjoy an Ethiopian restaurant :)

Hmmmm. I love Ethiopian food and I don’t find it to be hot. I find it to be very savory, spicy, and flavorful, but not hot/spicy. Indian food is spicy and hot. I also like Injera the spongy-textured, but not sponge-flavored, bread that comes with it. It helps that the bread is spongy in texture, because most Ethiopian food is like stew, so it’s a bit runny, the injera is used in place of utensils to pick it up and mop up the juices.

Some people are afraid to try it, because they think it will be hot. Some people are afraid to try it, because it doesn’t look like anything they are used to (except maybe baby food).

Not sure where people are getting the idea that the flavor of injera is bland. It is rather boldy flavored. It is made with Teff flour, which tastes very similar to sourdough. You’ll either like it or hate it. Not much middle ground with injera.

Eithiopian food is served on one big piece of injera, and then you are given more rolled up pieces of injera to tear off to scoop up your Wat (Eithiopian stew dishes). Here is a plate of different kinds of Wat served on a piece of injera.

You might have fun making Eithiopian food at home, but it’s best to try it at an Eithiopian or Eritrean restaurant first, so you can see how it’s supposed to look and taste, and to see how they serve it and eat it with the injera.

There are lots of vegetarian wats if you want to make some at home. Here are a few that you would commonly find at an Ethiopian restaurant:

Kik Alicha (split peas)

Ye’abesha Gomen (collard greens)

Mesir Wat (red lentils)

Atakilt Wat (carrot, potato, and cabbage)

Shiro Wat (chickpeas)

Was the fruit you saw possibly an Annona Squamosa, also known as a sugar apple, or sweetsop? They’re from Cambodia.

The first thing I thought of was a Cherimoya, but although the seeds are encased in a white pulp, the seeds are dark in color.

Or was it, perhaps, a Salak

I think you’re right that it probably was a jackfruit.

I’m learning all kinds of stuff about jackfruit!

Here’s even a delicious sounding recipe for @Kardamom. Whip us up a batch, will ya?

I can’t wait to find tinned green jackfruit. Probably wait a bit on the fresh, although I watched a video on how to clean one, and what to do with the parts. I have no idea how much they wanted for the fresh jackfruit. It was already split, so maybe he would sell half. There was also something there that looked like a squash…sort of pumpkin colored, and shaped like a turban.

I might need to find a similar place in St. Louis, as the prices there seemed considerably cheaper than the town I was in. Buying the Injera there is inevitable, though, as it’s made fresh daily and I don’t know of an Ethiopian restaurant.

Did I mention that this was all brought on my my “Adventures in Eating” policy? I have very limited experience with Indian food, so I chose an Indian for dinner in town. They brought a cracker and 2 little cups to the table. When the waitress arrived I asked her what I was supposed to do with it. She explained that it was papadum with 2 dipping sauces, sort of like chips and salsa. One of the sauces was bright green and sort of beaded or…non-smooth? It had lime and mint in it and was delicious. The other was watery, medium brown, and slightly sweet. Not bad, not to my taste.
From the descriptions on the menu I was leaning toward shrimp tiki masala. The waitress said, “Chicken tiki masala is our most popular, most ordered dish.” I said, “That decides it! Shrimp tiki masala.” Delicious! served with white rice that contained caraway seed and another odd seedpod (not sure I was supposed to eat it)—similar to what I’ve eaten pre-packaged. I was somewhat put off by the fact that there were no more than 5 shrimp in the dish @ $12–13 (in a town where the halal buffet is about $9, and delicious.)
Before I left I ordered a cheese naan to go, thinking it was a simple matter of bagging a [piece, loaf?] . NO. They brought a freshly cooked, screaming hot naan wrapped in foil. While good, I’m not sure it warranted the other waiter’s ranking of “It’s gold.” lol
Before I left, I asked for, and received directions to the market that sold jackfruit and Injera. Inspiration for this question.

Sorry if you thought this a WOT, but I figured if you’d been with me this long, you’d built up a little tolerance.
:-)

@ibstubro Ha ha ha, I loved hearing about your adventure! I’ve been eating Indian food now for about 25 years. I remember the first time I had it, I thought I’d died and gone to vegetarian heaven. Your best bet with Indian food, at least out here in California, is go to a lunchtime buffet. They’re usually in the 7 to 10 dollar range, but you can sample everything and eat as much as you want. Most buffets have about 20 different items, some are totally vegetarian and some are both meat and veg, but the veg items usually outnumber the meat items.

I believe the the dips you had were Coriander Chutney and Tamarind Chutney

Yes, Papadum is one of the greatest things in the whole world. You can get it raw in Indian markets and then just heat it up over the open flame on your stove. You can eat it with any kind of chutney, or Raita

Here’s what you’ll want to sample:

Aloo Gobi

Chana Masala

Samosas

Vegetable Korma

Dal Makhani

Mushroom Makhani

Palak Paneer

Malai Kofta

Gajar Ka Achar

Vegetable Pakoras

For dessert:

Kheer

Gulab Jamun

Dosas (these are usually not in the buffet, you have to order them separately.

And to drink:

Mango Lassi

Dollar Tree has frozen Samosas in the Super Stores, @Kardamom, in case I forgot to tell you.

@ibstubro I think you did and they didn’t have them at mine. The one out here is just called regular Dollar Tree, not Super, even though ours has a frozen and fridge section. So far they haven’t had them at the 99 Cent Only store either, but I’ll be on the watch out for them.

If it has a frozen section, it should be a super, @Kardamom. The ‘super’ is in-store lingo. Mine might be out of them by now, too. The Switzers green apple licorice is very spotty – one store ran out, the other was fully stocked. 2 different states, however.