I like Tibetan food, and found it homely and tasty. A few ingredients recur.

Yak, not surprisingly, is ubiquitous.

Over the course of our stay, we had yak momos, potato yak momos (a kind of potato croquette with a meat filling), chilli yak momos, yak and radish, yak and chillies, yak curry, and yak and potatoes with rice (the best and simplest rendition of this last was on our way home to Lhasa, and we ate it sitting in the sun, accompanied by two gorgeous kitties).

And yak momos, we found, go well with hot/sour noodle soup.









Yaks (and cows) also produce delicious yoghurt and butter. The former is so tasty it really needs to be savoured on its own. The latter is best in tea. Butter tea. Made from black tea, butter, and salt. Totally delicious.

(Strictly speaking, yaks in Tibetan are male, and another word is used to denote the female animal. But hey...)

Barley is another characteristic Tibetan food. Its best-known manifestation is tsampa, and one breakfast-time, our excellent guide showed me how to make this local stalwart.

Into your bowl goes a little dried cheese and a little butter tea (you can add butter, too, but my mentor was finicky about any butter not personally acquired). Then you heap in a fair amount of roasted barley flour. Then you knead, as though you are making pastry, turning the bowl all the time. And finally you shape the dough into little balls (mine were crafted for me the first time, but I produced a credible if somewhat immature version next time round).

You alternate bites of the little balls with mouthfuls of butter tea, and finish off with some yogurt. The bits that refuse to make balls can be floated in butter tea, and spooned up, or added to your yogurt.

I absolutely loved this breakfast. Grainy, nutty taste; chewy texture; buttery tea -- what's not to like?



The other key thing you can do with barley is use it to make chang (or barley beer). We enjoyed ours in the market at Shigatse (a homely, unpretentious setting, with vegetables piled in front and dried sheep carcasses hanging behind).

It's a mild, pleasant, low-alcohol beverage. Before it's served, a little roasted barley flour is sprinkled in the first glass of each round. Before you drink this first glass, you dip in your ring finger three times, and sprinkle a little of the drink (one for the sky, one for the earth, and one for the naga).



Round the corner from our hotel in Lhasa was a little enterprise producing barley beer, which regularly sent delicious-smelling fumes out into the neighbourhood.



And the conventional and very drinkable Lhasa Beer also has a barley component.

And so we turn to wheat...

Shabaleb bread, first up. We'd actually had this tasty little pie/bread cross (also spelled shapale or shyabhale) before in Sikkim. Nice to renew our acquaintance.



We also revisited thenthuk, a variation of thukpa (noodle soup). Classic, mild-but-flavourful comfort food.

We didn't have the chance to try much bread. But our guide always brings back these slightly sweet little buns after trips to Shigatse, and it's easy to understand why.



The other attractive feature of Tibetan eating is the decor. Even modest eateries look pretty and/or have lovely views and surroundings.

All in all, this is a fine culinary heritage, and I enjoyed it very much.