Food Truck as Melting Pot: Clay Pot’s Recipe Centers Heritage

by Kristin Satterlee

Eaters rejoice! After years of desire for Ethiopian food in New Mexico, Seble Yemenu’s Clay Pot Ethiopian Cuisine food truck opened in January to fill that need.

So… what is Ethiopian food?

Ethiopian cuisine consists largely of spicy, stew-like dishes. Those stews can feature meats, beans or lentils, or vegetables, but they are almost always served with injera—a spongy sourdough flatbread made with ground teff, the world’s smallest grain. (And a gluten-free one.) Instead of using forks or spoons, diners tear off pieces of the tangy pancake-like bread and use it to pick up morsels of food.

On her website, Yemenu muses that when she moved from Ethiopia, she was worried the food would be bland. Instead, she was delighted to find lots of chile in New Mexico, including dried red chile, the main ingredient of the Ethiopian staple spice Berbere.

To Yemenu, Ethiopian food is the taste of home: “It just makes me full and satisfied eating it.” Plus, she says, she enjoys eating with her hands.

All around the town

Often the food truck format is used as a springboard to a brick-and-mortar store, but Yemenu says that’s not in her plans any time soon.

“I think I'm gonna stick with the food truck for a while…. I like going around. I like my new locations, reaching different parts of town. That's really nice. I just had to manage [how to] have people know where I'm going to be.”

So if you’re looking for Clay Pot, you’re gonna need the schedule. Happily, it’s easy to find on social media and at claypotnm.com. It does change periodically, so check before you go… and if in doubt, call at (505) 485-9540.

A challenging transition

It wasn’t easy to change gears from catering to the more unpredictable demand of a food truck:

“It's good and I also have a challenge…. sometimes there's not a lot of people, so I have to throw a lot of food. And there are also good times where I just make it and then sell out immediately. So it's good and bad, right? … I'm getting used to it and I'm getting better and better.”

Bringing Ethiopian tradition to ABQ

Yemenu came straight to Albuquerque from Ethiopia in 2018. She learned to cook there from women in her family.

“I was the oldest of five kids, so I just had to learn how to cook. I always liked to cook. I mean, nobody was forcing me…. I always liked cooking and serving and feeding my family.”

As well as the food truck and catering, Yemenu offers traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremonies and cooking classes. She especially enjoys teaching children’s cooking classes: “It's so easy. It comes so naturally. They are happy and willing to learn.”

Feeling the love

“I'm just thankful to Albuquerque and for a lot of kind people,” Yemenu says. Through site changes and supply challenges, people keep showing up and supporting Clay Pot. Yemenu says she likes variety, so the menu changes often, and “now I'm realizing that everything I make, [people] buy it. It goes out quickly. When I give them samples… they're like, yeah, I want it. I'm gonna buy it.”