Tibetan Cuisine

Tibetan cuisine reflects local climates and customs. Few crops grow at the high altitudes that characterize Tibet, although a few areas in Tibet are low enough to grow such crops as rice, oranges, bananas, and lemon. The most important crop is barley. Flour milled from roasted barley, called tsampa, is the staple food of Tibet. Balep is Tibetan bread eaten for breakfast and lunch. Thukpa is mainly consumed for dinner. It consists of noodles of various shapes, vegetables, and meat in broth. Tibetan cuisine is traditionally served with bamboo chopsticks, in contrast to other Himalayan cuisines, which are eaten by hand. Small soup bowls are also used, and rich Tibetans are fed from bowls of gold and silver.

Meat dishes are likely to be yak, goat, or mutton, often dried or cooked in a spicy stew with potatoes. Mustard seed is cultivated in Tibet and therefore features heavily in its cuisine. Yak yoghurt, butter, and cheese are frequently eaten, and well-prepared yoghurt is considered something of a prestige item. As well as consumed in Tibet, varieties of Tibetan dishes are consumed in Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and by the Tibetan diaspora in India, and various regions of northern Nepal, such as Mustang.