Surviving Ethiopia’s RAW Meat Sidequest 🇪🇹

A day walking Addis Ababa, and the most information-dense of the three Ethiopia videos. The headline is half a kilo of raw beef, eaten because it’s a delicacy here and because the tradition behind it is that fires gave away your position in wartime — so eating meat raw became associated with courage.

Around it: seven coffees, a khat market where he is told not to film and gets the etiquette explained to him, a coffee ceremony in a shack that he rates above any café in the world, and a taxi driver who charges a premium because his car is a Lada and volunteers that Putin is a good man.

Key moments

• [01:01] People here don’t like the camera, and he says why he thinks that is — they may take him for a journalist.
• [01:34] His working rule: go in with good energy and people return it. If someone says don’t film, move on.
• [02:04] Ethiopia was never colonised. The Italians tried and were defeated, making it the first African nation to beat the colonisers, which he thinks is part of why the culture is so distinct.
• [02:39] And why you can almost always tell an Ethiopian — or an Eritrean, since the two were one country.
• [03:44] Street coffee at 30 birr, roasted over coals with no electricity involved.
• [05:55] The jebena, the traditional pot, which he says looks like a museum piece.
• [07:04] Christian and Muslim populations living alongside each other, which he notes works better here than in some places.
• [07:37] Christianity reached Ethiopia before it reached Europe.
• [08:09] Ethiopian Airlines, which he rates the best in Africa and which is why he has transited the country so often.
• [09:13] A taxi to Mercato, 600.
• [09:49] Addis is unusually well planned — wide two- and three-lane roads and very little traffic on a weekday, which he contrasts with other African capitals that grew faster than their streets.
• [10:53] There’s a metro.
• [13:12] The khat market, where filming is genuinely taboo.
• [15:39] A seller explains the etiquette rather than just refusing: ask first, and don’t photograph what you haven’t bought.
• [16:46] His summary of the whole market: people match your energy.
• [19:31] Football shirt shops. Five in a row refuse to let him film.
• [21:04] His theory, offered as a guess: the shirts are counterfeit, and it’s only the football shops that behave this way.
• [20:34] An Ethiopia shirt at 1,500.
• [21:34] Tea stalls ringing the outside of the football stadium, invisible on Google Maps, where the locals drink.
• [25:40] A bystander intervenes to stop a seller overcharging him — 50 corrected down to 25. Harry says it’s the first country where he’s seen someone do that for a stranger.
• [26:10] The seventh coffee of the day, and the same verdict: best in the world.
• [28:23] An army position he asks to photograph and is refused.
• [28:57] His own reflection: Ethiopia doesn’t feel dangerous to him at all, and he keeps forgetting how recent the conflict is. Tigray, no longer at war, is still pushing for independence, and he has been told there are dangerous areas in the south that he hasn’t verified.
• [29:02] Raw beef, eaten with fellow creator Chris.
• [30:39] 1,500 birr for half a kilo, cut to order from the chest.
• [32:54] Why it exists: fires were avoided during wartime so as not to give away a position, so meat was eaten raw. It is now associated with courage and strength rather than necessity.
• [33:24] Tried plain first — chewy, and completely unseasoned.
• [34:28] With berbere, chilli and mustard, wrapped in bread, it works.
• [35:32] His verdict: glad to have tried it, prefers his steak cooked.
• [36:03] The cooked version, which he gives nine out of ten.
• [36:35] An electric taxi.
• [37:37] They arrive at the wrong church, because the driver dropped them at the nearest one.
• [39:20] A coffee ceremony instead: incense, roasting and brewing, 25 birr including the ceremony.
• [41:12] Where the best coffee in the world actually is, and it isn’t a trendy café — it’s a shack.
• [41:45] A taxi driver charging a premium on the grounds that his car is a Lada and therefore a luxury car.
• [42:46] Who then volunteers that Putin is a good man with a good government — the first person Harry has heard say it.

Extracted pages

• Place: Addis Ababa
• Country: Ethiopia
• Tips: When people don’t want to be filmed