What is the traditional food in Tibet?

Answer 1

One View:

The common people in Tibet eat mutton, beef and meat of yak. Some of the Buddhists prefer vegetarian food.

Tibetans have rice, wheat and barley as staple foods, and usually they eat food made of barley, such as chamba. The so-called chamba is actually stir-fried barley. Different from the process of dealing with wheat among the Han people, barley is first stir-fried, and then milled into powder without being peeled. Chamba is often accompanied with yak or cow butter salted tea. Pour out half a bowl of yak butter tea, then add chamba into the tea, stir it with your fingers, crush it up and it is ready to eat. During festivals, Tibetans throw chamba into the air to pray for a good luck.

Tibetans like eating meat to fight the cold. The meat of yaks and sheep is the most favoured apart from beef. The meat of goats is disliked, while that of dogs, horses, and donkeys is taboo. In some areas, people do not eat fish for they regard fish as the incarnation of the god of water or due to the fear of its bone getting stuck in the throat. Other people do not eat chicken or even eggs. Food taboos differ from area to area. Tibetans are used to eating raw meat. In winter, they cut the meat into slices and hang them high up after mixing the slices with salt and a little bit of mustard oil. The meat will keep fresh in the coldness and gradually dry. In the next spring they can either eat the air-dried meat as it is or cook it.

Sweet tea and yogurt are the other two common drinks. Sweet tea is what you get when you add milk and sugar to boiling tea. It is very popular to propose a toast of tea when seeing somebody off. Yogurt is more popular in pastoral areas.

Tibetans do not eat vegetables very often. In recent years, the situation has changed a lot, but vegetables are still much more expensive than those in mainland China.

Another View:

Staying in a Sakya monastery of over 600 monks for many weeks and visiting a Nunnery of over 100 nuns it was apparent that meat was part of their staple diet, from the Rinpoches (reincarnated Tulkus) downwards. The area was in what was the Kham Region of Eastern Tibet, now incorporated into the Quinghai Province of China. Rinpoche explained that as long as the meat was killed by others, it was acceptable, giving appropriate thanks, to eat the flesh.

Another staple was the momo, a steamed dumpling filled with yak, pork, mutton or chicken. My evening meal in the monastery was invariably momo.

There was a small amount of greens in at least one meal a day and always chili. Noodles also featured regularly, although I gathered this was more to do with the recent association with China rather than Tibetan tradition. In the hotels and private houses the meals always included greens and some tomatoes.

Tsamba and hot butter tea were part of the morning Puja, or prayer session, for the monks.

Answer 2

Traditional Tibetan food consist mainly barley, meat and dairy products. Vegetables are scarce in the high altitude. Tsampa is the staple food of Tibetan people, which is consumed daily. It is actually barley flour made from parched barley, unhusked and ground into fine flour. Put some flour with salted butter tea in a bowl, rotate the bowl with the left hand and mix the food with your fingers of your right hand, roll it into small lumps, then squeeze it into your mouth with your fingers. Other ingredients may also be added to add flavor. Tibetan people eat Tsampa at every meal and bring it as instant food in travel. The salted butter tea is an indispensable Tsampa pal. Boiled tea is poured into a long cylindrical churn along with salt and yak butter. Vigorous churning makes the ingredients well blended and ready to serve. Tibetan people drink it throughout the whole day. Yak butter is very important food for Tibetan people and it is separated from yak milk by hard churning. After butter is separated from milk, the residue becomes sour and can be made into milk curd which is a nice thirst quenchable and can be made into milk curd pastry with barley flour.

Answer 3

The people of Tibet eat ch'hampa which is a flour like substance with Tibetan butter tea, cha bhoecha. They also eat dumplings that are called momo.

Answer 4

I'd guess it is momos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_(food)