Tibetan Food

*Tsampa
The basic Tibetan meal is tsampa, a kind of dough made with roasted barley flour and yak butter with water, teror beer. It has a certain novelty value the first time you try it, but only a Tibetan can eat it every day and still look forward to the next meal.

*Meat
Tibetans live on beef,mutton and milk products.As everybody knows,beef and mutton contain high heat energy,which is helpful for people living in the area of high attitude to withstand coldness.It is very interesting that Tibetans have the practice of eating raw meats.Dried beef and mutton will be found hanging in Tibetans' tents if you pay a visit to the local families,and the host may ask you to taste the dried raw beef and mutton.

*Yak Butter
Yak Butter,refined from the milk of cattles and goats,is the daily food of Tibetans.It is intriguing for Tibetans to refine yak butter.As milk segregators are not widely used in the pasturing area in Tibet,Tibetan people usually refine milk in old way.Yak butter has very high value of nutrition. Tibetans usually eat fruits and vegetables little,especially in pasturing area,the daily required heat energy is supplied by yak butter besides meats.

*Milk product
The prevalent milk products are yoghourt and milk sediment.Yoghourt has two types as well,one is cheese,Daxue in Tibetan,which is made of milk from which ghee has been refined;the other is Exue made of milk from which ghee has not been refined.Yoghourt is a kind of food after saccharification, richer in nourishing components and easier to digest.Milk sediment can be made into milk cakes.

The Buttered Tea

Buttered tea is the favorite drink of Tibetan people. It is made of boiled brick tea and ghee. Ghee, which looks like butter, is a kind of dairy product of fat abstracted from cow milk or sheep milk. Tibetan people like the ghee made of yak milk. When they make buttered tea, they mix boiled brick tea and ghee in a special can, add some salt, pour the mixed liquid into a pottery or metal teapot and finally heat up it (but not boil it). Different people have different tastes for the buttered tea. Some people like salty flavor, others prefer to light flavor. People who do manual labors, especially men, like the strong-tasted, cream-like buttered tea. Old people, children and women like light-flavored tea. People usually heat up the buttered tea because cold buttered tea is not easy to be digested and does harm to one's stomach.