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Cookware · Hearths

Rekkal

The clay stand under a mitad: three mouths of fire, and injera baked in a circle.

Also called mogogo stand · From Ethiopian highlands

A clay rekkal stove with a mitad on top and two small pots of wat at the side openings.

The journey

A mitad is only half the hearth. The rekkal is the clay stove it sits on — often three openings, one for the griddle and two for pots of wat or coffee. Highland houses still build this furniture out of earth.

A modern electric mitad hides the stand. The gesture stays: bread in the center, stews at the side.

A 1771 map of Abyssinia — the highland hearth that still stands a mitad on a rekkal.
Rigobert Bonne, map of Abyssinia (1771) · Public domain. Source

In the kitchen

If you bake injera on a skillet, give the wat its own burner. The highland table is a circle of fires, not one pot.

The Ethiopian volume's coffee and stew pages assume this kitchen geometry. The jebena and the dist are the other two mouths.

Used in these ComidaTime kitchens