Greek olive oil from ancient trees, imported by air freight. Ethiopian spices driven more than 2,000 miles. Mexican banana leaves shipped in from a friend in California. Alaska wild berries crowdsourced from across the state.
In Anchorage, where school district students’ combined 112 languages is often cited as a metric of diversity, the city’s various identities are also reflected through culturally specific foods.
Some restaurant and business owners put in extra effort to bring authentic ingredients from the source, in spite of far distances.
Hand-picked ingredients
Inside the Midtown Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant, a blooming smell of spices looms in the air. It smells just like Ethiopia, said employee Nile Monfe, who was born in the country before immigrating to the States as a child.
That’s because chef and restaurant owner Dawit Ogbamichael cooks with the real deal: imported Ethiopian ingredients, backed by the cultural knowledge of how to prepare them.
“Everything we make is from scratch,” said Ogbamichael, who moved to Anchorage two decades ago. “But every ingredient we use, there aren’t any major retailers here that (carry) our ingredients. That’s the problem.”
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