Tolsuwa

Wolaita

Illustration

Researched: Researched from 191 sources in the brief

Tolsuwa is the raw beef of the Wolaita new year. At Gifaata the best cuts of the ox, which the Wolaita zone administration names as geda and shanya (shanya is the hump), are hung on a rack called kocha or set on a woven tray, and eaten raw with thinly baked maize and kocho breads and data berbere, the Wolaita chilli paste made with a great deal of butter.

The ox is bought by a savings group more than two months ahead and fattened in a closed stall on sweet potato and maize, the zone's Gifaata page says, and killed on a Sunday close to the new moon that opens the Gifaata month. The Reporter describes the meal under another name, qaye ashuwa: the family spreads an enset leaf called ergiya on the floor, lays the meat on it, sits round it and eats, dipping in data berbere and feeding one another. On the zone's page the father feeds the mother first, then each child.

As tradition built it

The Gifaata feast, for the family round the leaf.

Ingredients

Tolsuwa is served by cue: no source weighs the meat or the data berbere, and the zone page gives the paste in two ways and the meat as the best cuts of the ox.

The meat

beef, the best cuts: geda and shanya (shanya is the hump)

Data berbere

chilli
garlic
other spices, which the source does not name
butter, a great deal
manta, the liquid from the milk gut, for the second way

To serve

maize flatbread, baked thin
kocho flatbread, baked thin
enset leaf, ergiya, to lay the meat on

Method

Data berbere

Pound the chilli with the garlic and the other spices in a mortar.
Work in the butter, a great deal of it. This is the first way.
For the second way, work in the butter and enrich the paste with manta.

The meat

Hang the best cuts of beef on the kocha rack, or lay them on a tray, or on an enset leaf spread on the floor.
Cut the meat at the table and eat it raw, dipped in the data berbere, with the thin maize flatbread and kocho flatbread.

Notes

The zone page names mucha and bachira as served with tolsuwa at the new year, and does not describe them. Raw beef in Britain is a different proposition from an ox killed that morning in Wolaita: use whole muscle from a butcher you know, cut it the day you buy it, and keep it cold.

What a modern chef changes

The cut chosen for its fat, and the data pounded to order

Rungs 4 and 5

Method

Choose for fat. Shanya is the hump of a zebu ox, muscle laced with fat. In Britain the nearest is a well marbled whole muscle cut, trimmed of sinew.
Chill the meat hard and slice it at the table, thin and across the grain, so the cold fat cuts clean and does not smear.
Pound the data berbere to order and work it into butter warmed to about 42°C, the kitfo temperature. Rung 4: the chilli's colour and heat go into the fat, and a paste made yesterday has lost its front.
Taste the paste on a slice of the meat, then salt. Rung 5: season the mouthful, not the bowl.