- Yak butter tea being poured at a wedding. Babas can be seen in the background - Phil Soffe
In a Tibetan nomadic area, a foreigner was served yak butter tea. The foreigner commented to the Tibetan host that the bowl was quite dirty. The host emptied the contents and held the empty bowl out for his dog to lick. After the hungry Tibetan mastiff licked the bowl clean, the foreigner was again served with a fresh cup of butter tea. Wherever you are, don’t complain, because it could get worse.
Because Tibetan and Chinese people have intermingled since the dawn of time, Tibetan food and Chinese food are invariably also somewhat intermingled. Chefs in a Tibetan restaurant can often cook Chinese food, Nepalese food, Indian food and Tibetan food. Just as Tibetan people overlap culturally with all of these places, so does Tibetan food.
Tibetan staple food
The staple of the Tibetan diet is the same all over Tibet. Tibetans from Kham Tibet, Amdo Tibet and central Tibet all drink yak butter tea and eat roasted barley flour. These two are sometimes mixed together to form a yak butter barley flour ball of dough. Nomads, farmers and monks all over Tibet drink yak butter tea and eat roasted barley, which they call tsampa.
Rolling the ball of dough from the mixture of butter tea and barley flour is a difficult process and requires skill. I have never mastered the ability no matter how many times I’ve tried. I either get my hands sticky or get barley flour all over the floor and usually I’m doing well if only one of these occur. Unfortunately this usually means my gracious host will lend a hand – usually a very dirty one!
To make the yak butter barley flour ball, you drink your bowl of butter tea down to half and then add a lot of barley flour. The amount of barley flour that should be added is where it gets tricky; if you add too little, you will get a sticky mess all over your hands and if you add too much you will get the fine powder of barley flour everywhere.
Tibetan dairy food
Besides yak butter tea and barley flour, Tibetan food consists of a lot of diary and food high in protein. This is because the yak is one of the main sources of Tibetan food. Tibetan drink the milk procured from the female yak, churn it into butter, make it into yoghurt and cheese. To learn how to make yak butter tea, click on the link.
A tasty Tibetan dish – yak cheese on a hot skillet
A very tasty Tibetan dish is the special yak cheese cooked in yak butter with sugar added. This is served in a hot skillet sometimes with a little extra sugar added on top and eaten with a teaspoon. Yak cheese is smoked over an open fire and tastes quite tart with a rubbery texture. It can be hard to find Tibetan food substitutes, but for yak cheese the closest substitute available is feta cheese.
The yak defines Tibetan food
The yak that plows the fields of barley crops is raised not only as a beast of burden, or to obtain its dairy produce, but also for the tasty beef that can be cut from the body. Yak meat is often dried to make yak jerky. This can be very tough, but also very tasty. Sometimes the yak meat is eaten raw. To make a typical dish of Tibetan food, here’s a simple recipe:
Ingredients:
• Beef jerky (as much as desired)
• Chilis
• Garlic
Fry these ingredients together in a fry pan with oil until cooked and serve hot. Adding a little bit of onion would be also good.
Yak beef is also cooked in a pot to make a yak beef stew or soup. Sometimes the raw meat is placed in bowl and boiling hot water poured over the top. This is supposed to be a common dish for Tibetan travelers and is known as ‘bandit’s soup’. I have never personally heard of this in my time in Tibet, I have only read of this type of Tibetan food.
The Tibetan food called the ‘momo’
A Tibetan momo is a steamed bun stuffed with meat inside. This is something similar to what the Chinese call 'jiaozi'. It is like a large savory dumpling usually filled with pork and sometimes yak beef or potatoes. Wanton wrappers can be found in most traditional supermarkets, which would be the best way to make this Tibetan food.
The Tibetan food called the ‘baba’
The baba is a flat unleavened bread cooked over the open fire with oil in a fry pan. This Tibetan bread is served as one whole and individuals break off as much as they want. Honey is sometimes served alongside the baba; some honey is taken on a spoon and placed on the baba. Alternately this is served with the yak cheese on the hot skillet and either way it is very tasty.
Tibetan food substitutes
Some of these dishes are hard to make in countries where yak products are unavailable. Anything with yak butter can be substituted with regular butter, yak cheese should be substituted with feta cheese and yak beef jerky with regular beef jerky. If this is done, it should be possible to serve an exotic, unconventional and tasty meal to your friends and family.
Rhys Emmanuel - Living and doing development work as a medical professional in Asia has given me unique insight into many areas of life and work and a ...
