THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

If left to their own devices peasants will last forever. But all to often in this world those who have all and more than they need feel the urge to go "Full Grinch" on some quaint group of peasants somewhere and take the last thing of value they have. This may entail commodities or food stuffs. A fine recent example of this is the grain quinoa, left for the peasants to eat because the Haves did not want it, until some trend setter made it the next coming of Vegetable Christ. And now the Central & South American peasants who lived comfortably on cheap and plentiful quinoa are having trouble being able to afford it. And now the peasants of Ethiopia are being targeted with the opportunity to share their manna with the otherwise overfed asses of the trendy world.

Outside Ethiopian diaspora communities — and Ethiopian restaurants — teff remained largely anonymous for decades. But growing appetites for traditional crops and nutritious foods mean customers ranging from families to hipsters in New York and London are now seeking their fix too. The crop is now grown in about 25 U.S. states, but Ethiopians claim you can’t beat teff grown in its homeland for flavor and quality.

Previously heralded so-called superfoods, however, such as Andean quinoa, have illustrated hidden consequences for locals when their indigenous staples find eager customers in more affluent countries. Even before the growth in international demand, poor Ethiopians were struggling to afford increasingly expensive teff.

“A piece of injera used to cost about 50 santeem ($0.02), but now it’s nearly four Ethiopian birr ($0.19),” said Nathaniel, the manager of a hotel in the eastern Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. It’s estimated that 29 percent of Ethiopia’s population lives on less than $2 a day.

Nathaniel said that the tables on the hotel terrace lacked lunch patrons because people can’t afford to eat out and that many locals, faced with low incomes and high food prices, skip breakfast each day and eat only a midmorning snack followed by an injera-based meal later in the afternoon.

Teff, primarily ground into flour to make injera, is the backbone of Ethiopia’s food. But throughout millennia of farming, most Ethiopians remained unaware of the nutritional gem in their midst.

Though teff is tiny — about 100 grains match a kernel of wheat — it is a nutritional heavyweight. It has a mild, nutty flavor, and it’s high in calcium, iron and protein, with an excellent balance of amino acids. Plus it’s naturally gluten-free. In flour form, it can be used to make foods ranging from bread and pasta to tortillas, piecrusts and cookies, with a far larger potential market than just diaspora Ethiopians needing a taste of home.

"People are dreaming of teff nowadays. After thousands of years, it has become the trendy thing over here," said Sophie Sirak-Kebede, a British-Ethiopian co-owner of London-based Tobia Teff, which sells teff flour, teff bread, breakfast cereals such as teff flakes and teff porridge and, of course, injera.

And the new front in Gastronomic Imperialism will not make it easier for those who have gone before. The pressures will remain as the lesser trendies take up that cause.