What is it like to eat an authentic Tibetan meal in Lhasa?

When it comes to food, everyone will smile. After seeing the beautiful scenery of the plateau, of course you have to try the local food.

Tibetan food: The meat is mainly beef, sheep, chicken, and pig, and the vegetables are potatoes and radishes. The staple food is mainly rice, noodles and highland barley. The cooking methods are mainly boiled, fried, cold, steamed and eaten raw.

In order to cater to the tastes of tourists, Tibetan restaurants in Lhasa have improved versions of Tibetan food, not family-style food. For example, the famous Tibetan restaurants: Namasede on Yutuo Road, Danjieling Road In Pubacang, most tourists eat Tibetan hot pot and may not be used to other dishes. The Zang noodles, steamed buns, sweet tea, and potatoes cooked in various ways on the streets of Lhasa are quite delicious. Real aboriginal Tibetan food can only be eaten at Tibetan homes.

Eating habits are difficult to regulate, and others you like may not necessarily agree with you.

Tell me about my experience of eating at a Tibetan home. Last year, the Spring Festival happened to be on the same day as the Tibetan New Year. I was fortunate to be a guest at a Tibetan home in Lhasa. The two Tibetan hosts were waiting at the gate early. With a smile on his face, he bowed to shake hands and sent his blessing: "Tashi Delek"! Very polite and polite.

The owner’s courtyard is clean and tidy. There are several five-color prayer flags on the roof. The door is decorated with various Tibetan Buddhist ornaments. When you enter the house, there is a long row of carpeted cushions next to the window. There is a Tibetan-style sofa and a coffee table filled with all kinds of refreshments. There is a Tibetan-style carpet on the floor. Opposite the sofa is an offering table with many layers of tributes. There is a portrait of the 10th Panchen Lama on the wall. Tibetan incense and butter are floating in the room. smell.

After you sit down, the host begins to offer cigarettes and tea. He holds a full cup of butter tea in both hands and offers it to you. The strong smell of butter represents the deep enthusiasm of the Tibetan people. Then he brings over a plate of air-dried yak meat. , urging you to eat, I took a sip of butter tea. The host then filled it up and said that butter tea can prevent dry lips due to high fever. It is their etiquette. Fill the cup to show respect. Aftertaste, it has a salty taste and a bit of odor. , there is a thick wrapping feeling on the lips. In fact, I have drunk it before, but I always don’t like the taste. I tried yak jerky again. I ate a small strip and felt that it was not much different from beef jerky in the mainland. I ate it again One of them had a little oil on it and had a very strong smell of mutton, so I couldn't eat it. The glutinous rice cake was not bad, it was sweet and a bit choking, but the other one didn't have the smell of mutton.

After tea, we entered the main meal. I was a little worried about whether I could get used to it and whether I could accept the taste. There was a solid wood round table in the owner’s dining room. Tibetan homes are all made of solid wood furniture. On the table were placed Blood sausage, mixed tripe, peanuts, mashed potatoes, ghee sticks, fried dough cakes, bright red beef sauce, hot dishes include stewed yak beef, mutton, cordyceps chicken, fried lungs, so much to eat, except chicken soup, potatoes, I didn’t dare to bother with the fried cakes and other foods, as I couldn’t stand the heavy smell of mutton and spices. Thanks to the host for his warm hospitality, but I can’t enjoy the delicious food myself. This is also a Tibetan meal in Lhasa, and the host is from a very good family. If I go to Ali, where the streets are full of butter smell, it is even more difficult to eat with Tibetans in the Nagqu area. Habit.

It’s so long-winded, but it’s actually a matter of regional eating habits. Different tastes are naturally not easy to accept. China has many famous families and its brilliant food culture is a blessing for our people.

You may not be able to see authentic Tibetan food now, nor may you dare to eat it. There are different Tibetan meals in different places and occasions, some are simple and can be eaten casually, and some are ceremoniously prepared; some are in pastoral areas, at home, and some in restaurants. Depending on the location and the occasion, Tibetan meals are also different. With the change of society, With development, Tibetan food is also changing.

Tibet is located on a plateau, with high air pressure and little oxygen, so it is difficult to light a fire. Even if a fire is lit, the boiling point of water is over 70 degrees, making it impossible to cook rice and meat, and Tibet has few connections with the outside world. Therefore, the staple foods of Tibetan cuisine are mainly butter tea, tsampa, raw beef and mutton and highland barley wine. The smell of butter tea, the "dirtyness" of tsampa, and the insects crawling in the dried beef and mutton, although Tibetan friends are very warm and sincerely hospitable, it is difficult for outsiders to accept it. In contrast, highland barley wine (made by ordinary people with low alcohol content) is easier to drink. If you like drinking, you will soon become a friend of the Tibetans.

Authentic Tibetan food, no side dishes when drinking.

In the past, transportation in Tibet was very congested, and people only had homemade highland barley wine to drink as tea. Those who have the means can get high-quality sorghum wine, and there is no side dish when drinking it. It is mostly eaten with candy, fried highland barley grains, fried broad beans, walnuts, red dates, dried peaches and other snacks. These foods are available in most Tibetan homes. Of course, Tibetans still have to eat tsampa, which is to put fried highland barley flour in a bowl, add butter tea, mix it with your hands, knead it into a ball, and eat it with your hands (those bowls are very good, they are carved from high-quality single wood or made of silver) , wipe it with clothes after meals and put it in your arms, use it with food).

I have eaten improved Tibetan food. When I was drinking sorghum wine, the host brought out a large pot of steaming boiled mutton. It was a large piece of dried mutton that Tibetans always have in stock all year round. The host said, " We don’t eat raw beef and mutton.” If you tear open the mutton, there is still blood inside, so you might as well just drink wine. There are also exceptions where the owner boils a dozen eggs and drinks them with wine.

Tibetan wedding banquets should be authentic Tibetan meals: drinking without eating vegetables, eating vegetables without drinking, eating endless highland barley wine, and listening to endless toasting songs!

At that time, in the 1970s, before marriage, the bride and groom would put up red notices in their workplaces with their names, inviting colleagues to come. I remember that the gift money was only 1.1 yuan per person, and I bought a quilt and an enamel basin. The wedding was held at my home. From a distance, I saw a male Tibetan man wearing a top hat, high leather boots, and a dress with bare hands standing at the gate to greet him. There were such male Tibetan men at every door in the courtyard. Support and guide. In every room where guests are received, the fruit plate on the stage is filled with candies, cigarettes, and food. There are female Tibetans serving the guests in the room. Each person who enters the room is given three cups of highland barley wine, and then they offer cigarettes, sugar, and food, even if they don’t want to eat. After three cups, there is a second round of toasts, a third round..., the toasting girl sings and dances, she won't leave until you eat, she keeps singing and dancing in front of you. During the meal, all the fruit plates are moved away and replaced with rich dishes. The toasting girl changes into serving rice (rice is specially prepared for Han people) to serve the guests. At this time, there is only food, no tobacco and alcohol. After the meal, many drunken guests left. Because the wedding was about to take place, highland barley wine had to be served continuously, and no one could escape halfway. At that time, they would be punished with three cups of wine.

After the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom held silver wine jugs about half a person’s height, and a accompanying maid held up a silver ingot-shaped wine glass with both hands and came over to toast in order. There were many guests, and the number of toasting ladies also increased. Shuttle back and forth, singing, dancing and toasting, singing, foot tapping, cheering, a sea of ??joy!

A nation has its own way of life. You don’t have to accept it, but you must understand it and respect it! (

Introduction to this issue: What is it like to eat an authentic Tibetan meal in Lhasa?

In my personal opinion, the authentic Lhasa Tibetan meal is simply unbearable for us. Yes, because authentic Tibetan food is mostly based on butter tea, highland barley cakes, Tibetan meat, and tsampa, and these Tibetan meals are mainly about the taste and cooking methods.

It is also completely different from us. First of all, let’s talk about the taste, because Lhasa is located in a plateau area, and the biggest feature of the plateau area is high air pressure and less oxygen, so don’t think about it in Lhasa. The food is 100% cooked, because when cooking the food here

the real boiling point of water is only over 70 degrees, and it is impossible to completely cook the food at this boiling point water temperature. Once the food is not really cooked, you can imagine what the food will taste like, so when eating Tibetan food in Lhasa, if you eat some uncooked food, , don’t appear to be making a fuss. Moreover, in addition to these uncooked foods, there is also authentic butter tea, which we cannot accept, because when drinking butter tea, the first thing you see is a layer of butter flowers

And when you drink it, there will be a faint milky smell in your mouth, and this faint milky smell is exactly what we cannot accept, because this kind of milky smell is really It's a bit bigger, and it smells a bit unpleasant. As for the cooking method of the food,

it's even more intolerable to many people, because authentic Tibetan meat mostly consists of live pigs and sheep. After the live cattle and chickens are killed, they are directly chopped into pieces and hung outside to dry. Moreover, during this process, the meat is not cut with a cutter or salt.

Also No special processing is done on the meat, just chop it and hang it outside. Therefore, don’t think about the taste of these naturally dried meats. Besides, once these meats are dried, they will not be eaten again. I can’t even think about how delicious it is.

So when I eat Tibetan meat in Lhasa, I usually eat it directly with the Tibetan meat dipped in chili peppers. And when I eat Tibetan meat, I try to pick the leaner ones. Eat meat, because although the fatty meat can be chewed easily, it is too oily, so oily that I don’t want to eat it at all

An authentic Tibetan meal is not as beautiful as you think, nor It's not as unpalatable as people say. The milk tea in a thermos bottle can be divided into salty and sweet. The sweet one is a bit like the milk tea on the street, and the salty one is the real Tibetan flavor. The powdered tsampa also has a shape, so you no longer need to cook it yourself. Knead and knead the mutton with your hands, dip the big beef bones in some salt, and try the local potato buns. If milk tea doesn't suit your taste, you can also order a pot of butter tea, but there are a few less vegetables. This restaurant is only visited by Tibetans, with walls full of Buddha statues and dark-skinned Tibetans. What you want to calm down and savor is not the food, but the world.

Let’s have a traditional Tibetan meal in Shigatse

There are various Tibetan restaurants scattered in Shigatse. Most of the small local Tibetan restaurants only provide Tibetan noodles, and most of the people eating there are lamas from nearby. In this plateau area, you need to use a pressure cooker to cook a bowl of Tibetan noodles. The cooked Tibetan noodles have a unique taste. They are very soft on the outside and have raw white core inside. They taste like a bowl of overcooked instant noodles.

Due to the altitude, the Tibetan people’s diet is very monotonous. Zanba and butter tea are the most common foods. Zanba is made from highland barley flour mixed with water and kneaded into small balls. Eating a tsampa and drinking a sip of butter tea will make you feel full easily.

In addition to butter tea, Tibetan restaurants also offer a sweet tea similar to butter tea, which is packed in small thermos bottles and the price is about the same, about eight yuan per thermos bottle.

The difference is that butter tea is poured into a white porcelain bowl, with a light layer of oil on the surface. It tastes salty and has a light milky smell. Most outsiders are not used to drinking it, but Tibetans love it. A small golden glass is used to drink sweet tea. The milky smell is not strong and the taste is sweet. It is very popular among outsiders.

During the renovation of a family hotel run by Tibetan compatriots in Lulang, I had breakfast with several fellow travelers at their home: a large pot of porridge, a large stack of flatbread made of highland barley noodles, and tubes of butter tea. It's enough, plus a pot of Tibetan pork. We went for the Tibetan pork, but the result was very disappointing. The Tibetan people's cooking skills are unflattering. Their Tibetan pigs are raised in the wild, have a slender body, and are known to eat Cordyceps. I grew up drinking snow water, which is a first-class food ingredient. However, after Tibetans kill pigs, they chop them into pieces and put them to dry under the eaves. They don’t use a knife or seasonings such as salt. Then the lean meat cannot be chewed and the fat is too fat. The bits are like fat, very unpalatable and have no flavor, which is a waste of good ingredients, so we Han people are not used to eating Tibetan food!

Generally, Han people have no contact with Tibetan food. The feeling is unbearable

Delicious, awesome

Food is the same! The most common culture of all mankind is that "food is the first priority for all people". As long as the food is cooked carefully, the ingredients are fresh, the method is appropriate, the saltiness and taste are well controlled, and it is clean and hygienic, it will be a good meal! There are delicious meals in every region. All you have to do is adjust your mentality and be brave to experience it; if you find it tastes bad, it only means that you are in the wrong place and have not entered the right restaurant. Don’t be biased against ethnic meals. , Traveling is not only about seeing the scenery, but more importantly, experiencing the local characteristics and customs! Take my personal experience as an example, there are many delicacies in authentic Tibetan food! No more talking, the picture above is proof!

It’s a crappy experience. Where can I find one in Deji Road Telecom? The authentic one is very expensive.