Local Dishes

1. རྩམ་པ།

   Tsam pa

   Tsampa (roasted barley flour)

   Usage

   The foundation of Tibetan eating. It is barley (and similar grains) washed, roasted and ground, then moistened with tea, chang or cheese broth and kneaded by hand in the bowl into a lump (pak). It is graded by grain and fineness — barley tsampa, pea tsampa and so on. With nothing else at hand it works with plain water, which is why it travels so well

2. ཐུག་པ།

   Thug pa

   Thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup)

   Usage

   It broadly covers Tibetan-style soup, broth, gruel or noodle dishes, so what arrives varies from shop to shop; what is constant is that it is hot and liquid. At altitude it is the easiest thing to order

3. འཐེན་ཐུག

   Then thug

   Thenthuk (hand-pulled noodle soup)

   Usage

   The dough is torn and pulled by hand straight into the broth; then means "to pull," so the name is the method. It is a kind of thukpa, so pointing at it pins down the shape of what you get

4. མོག་མོག

   Mog mog

   Momo (steamed dumplings)

   Usage

   It means "steamed food" and splits into meat-filled and meatless; yak, beef or chicken is minced with onion and greens, the wrapper is pleated round or joined at both ends into a half-moon, the steamer is oiled and it cooks about fifteen minutes. In Lhasa you also meet potato momo

5. ཤ་བག་ལེབ།

   Sha bag leb

   Shapale (fried bread stuffed with beef)

   Usage

   A compound of sha (meat) and bagleb (flatbread): flatbread stuffed with beef and fried. Note that the same word also has a colloquial sense "a slap," so use it where the context is clearly food

6. ཀྲིན་མོག

   Trin mog

   Tingmo (steamed bun)

   Usage

   Borrowed from Chinese zhengmo; it corresponds to English "tingmo." It is unseasoned and eaten by dipping it into a broth. English menus usually spell it tingmo or timomo

7. གོ་རེ།

   Go re

   Gore (Tibetan bread)

   Usage

   Described as steamed bread, and also given as another name for drosek, wheat bread baked over heat. Accounts differ on steamed versus baked, so check the shape at the shop. A baker is gore zowen

8. དགུ་ཐུག

   Gu thug

   Guthuk (nine-ingredient soup for New Year's Eve)

   Usage

   A dish for one night a year. It falls on the 29th of the last lunar month and the nine ingredients are meat, dried cheese, droma root, greens, wheat, barley, beans and salt. Oversized dumplings hide a token each — wool, charcoal, chilli, paper, a shard of porcelain — and whatever you get is read aloud as a comment on your character

9. རྩམ་ཐུག

   Tsam thug

   Tsamthuk (tsampa soup)

   Usage

   Greens are chopped and boiled, then tsampa is stirred in and the whole is brought back to the boil and drunk. This is not a Tibet-wide practice: it belongs to parts of Amdo and parts of Tsang

10. རྩམ་ཞུན།

    Tsam zhün

    Tsamzhun (festive butter-and-tsampa sweet)

    Usage

    Tsampa, sugar and dried cheese folded into melted butter, then pressed into a bowl to set. It is not an everyday food but one for Losar and weddings, and an important gift to bring a host. In Amdo a thin layer of butter is poured over the top and decorated with fruit and coral beads, a finish called serkha

11. ཐུད།

    Thü

    Thü (butter and dried-cheese confection)

    Usage

    A confection of tsampa, butter, sugar and dried cheese. It comes in two kinds: white thü, made of butter, cheese and sugar, and black thü, which contains droma root

12. ཕྱེ་མར།

    Che mar

    Chemar (tsampa kneaded with butter)

    Usage

    Butter and tsampa beaten together without any tea liquid. It keeps well and so earns its place as provisions on a long journey, and it is said to help an upset stomach when made up in hot butter broth and eaten warm. It is made both with and without sugar. The same word names one of the Losar offerings

13. མར་ཟན།

    Mar zen

    Marzen (dried cake filled with butter and molasses)

    Usage

    Butter and molasses laid between two flattened sheets of tsampa dough, pressed together and dried. It is also one of the things made by working cheese, sugar, butter and thü into tsampa

14. སྤགས་ཆང་།

    Pag chang

    Pakchang (fermented tsampa dough)

    Usage

    Also called zenchang. Chang starter is scattered over tsampa dough, which is left to ferment, then shaped into bars or discs and dried, giving a sweet-sour food. It is fermented with a starter but it is food, not drink. It is eaten mainly across Ü-Tsang, answers both hunger and thirst, and too much warmth turns it sour while too little stops it rising

15. འབྲས་སིལ།

    Dre sil

    Dresil (sweet rice with butter and raisins)

    Usage

    Steamed rice topped with melted butter, sugar and raisins; this is what dresil now ordinarily means. It also appears among the Losar offerings

16. ཀྲམ་སྐྱུར།

    Tram kyur

    Pickled cabbage

    Usage

    A compound of tram (cabbage) plus kyurmo (sour), meaning "pickled cabbage, sauerkraut." It names a side dish, so point at it to find out what you have been given

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