Tibetan Cuisine and Qinghai Cuisine

Formation and Characteristics of Tibetan Cuisine

The Tibetan cuisine is greatly influenced by the Tibetan landscape of mountains and plateaus and includes influences from neighboring regions. Qinghai is home to many ethnic groups. Therefore, Qinghai cuisine boasts many kinds of dishes with different flavors such as sour and spicy, sweet and aromatic, crisp and brittle.

Tibet is one of China’s five ethnic minority autonomous regions. Situated in the border areas in the southwest of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Tibet is home to most of the Tibetan people in China. The Tibetan people is regarded as one of the most ancient ethnic minority groups in China and South Asia.

In the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government sent officials to Lhasa and set up an agency there, governing the affairs of Tibet as a whole. The designation of Tibet Amban by the Qing government greatly promoted the political, economic and cultural exchanges between Tibet and the inland, and facilitated the economic development of Tibet.

Tibetan cuisine refers to the culinary practices and traditions of the Tibetan people. The Tibetan people are mainly engaged in grazing domestic animals and agriculture. Accordingly, their staple food mainly includes beef, mutton, milk products, and highland barley. Thanks to its special plateau environment and geographical condition, the Tibetan people, who believe in Tibetan Buddhism, formed their unique dietetic habits which exhibit traces of their unusual living style and ancient culinary culture.

Tibetan food is characterized by the high quantity of heat so as to enable the Tibetans to live their lives in the environment of the plateau featuring low air pressure, frigid cold, and oxygen deficiency. There is not a wide variety of raw materials in Tibet for the Tibetans to choose when preparing food. Furthermore, many common cooking techniques of the inland cannot be used in Tibet, such as “boiling.” On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it is very difficult to boil food because of the low air pressure. In a word, Tibetan Cuisine is ancient, unsophisticated, and nutritious and has simple cooking methods.

Famous Dishes and Snacks in Tibet

(1). Lhasa

Lhasa was designated the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1960. Tourists can taste genuine Tibetan food in Lhasa, as well as the dishes and snacks from other places in China. Lhasa has many restaurants, which serve the dishes of various schools of Chinese cuisine. Famous Tibetan dishes include:

Mutton Eaten with Hands—手把羊肉

(Similar to Mutton Eaten with Fingers of the Mongolian people)

Roast Beef—烤牛肉

Crisp Roasted Piglet—酥烤地龙

Steamed Chicken with Chinese Caterpillar Funguses—虫草气锅鸡

Steamed with chicken meat, Chinese caterpillar funguses and a wide variety of seasonings in a special pot, this dish is delicious and nutritious.

Of many kinds of Tibetan snacks, Ginseng Fruit Rice (人参果米饭) is the most representative.

The ginseng fruit refers to the root of Potentilla Anserina L, with light red fruits in the shape of soybeans grown at the root. As the red fruits are tonic and nutritious, people call it ginseng fruit. The rice cooked with the red fruits of Potentilla Anserina L can help improve people’s health; hence it has been well received by the local people.

(2). Special Local Snacks

Zanba—糌粑

Zanba is the staple food of the Tibetan people, with a history of over 1,000 years. There are several kinds of zanba, such as qingke highland barley zanba, pea zanba, and oats zanba. Qingke zanba is prepared by mixing roasted barley flour with Tibet butter tea or barleywine into small balls. Zanba is sweet, aromatic and nutritious with a high quantity of heat. It is suitable for the climate on the plateau.

Tibet butter tea—酥油茶

Tibet butter tea is a traditional drink for the Tibetan people. According to historical records, when Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty went to Tibet, she took along some tea with her. She “turned milk into cheese, and then cheese into butter,” and finally created the Tibet butter tea. The main materials for preparing Tibet butter tea contain butter, tea, and salt. People can add milk and egg to the Tibet butter tea to make it more delicious.

Bazhamagu—巴炸马古

Bazhamagu is a traditional snack of the Tibetan people, prepared with flour, white sugar or red sugar, milk residues and butter. Procedure: Make flour pearl dumplings; boil them; pour boiling butter into the pot; add sugar and liquid milk residues, and boil several minutes again. This snack is sweet, aromatic and nutritious with a high quantity of heat.

Bulu—不鲁

Bulu is a must food for the Tibetan people when they celebrate the Tibetan New Year and other festivals. Prepared with flour, milk, white sugar, butter or light oil, this donut is golden yellow, sweet, crisp, soft and tasty.

Kashici—卡什茨

Kashici is a traditional cake of the Tibet ethnic group. The procedure to prepare this snack is: mix flour with salt, oil, milk, and butter; work the flour to make several pieces of small dough; bake cakes in a heated clay stove. With a yellow cover, the cake is soft and tasty. Therefore, kashici is regarded as an ideal gift given to friends, relatives, and children. Small-sized Kashici is called “qushici,” which is often given to honored guests as gifts.

Gutu—古突

Gutu is a dish served on the 29th day of the 12th month by the Tibetan calendar. The original meaning of “Gutu” is “Lajiu Porridge.” The porridge is made by stewing wheat, apricots, peppers, peas, beef, mutton, and other materials over a low fire. Each ingredient has its special meaning. This dish is like the jiaozi dumplings eaten by the Han people on the eve of the Spring Festival. The Han people believe that one who eats a jiaozi dumpling with a coin inside will have good luck in the coming year.

Beef jerky—牛肉干

Beef jerky is one of the snacks eaten by the Tibetan people.

Usually, they prepare beef jerky in autumn following this procedure: Cut beef into stripes; string them together; add salt, Chinese prickly ash powder, pepper powder and ginger powder to the beef; dry the beef in the shade.

Spicy, crisp, soft and aromatic, the beef jerky does not have residues. When one eats the jerky, the beef will not get stuck between the teeth, and beef jerky is easy to be carried along.

Saganchamen—萨干察门

Saganchamen is a milk product popular in Zayu Area in Southeast Tibet. Zayu is home to a special tree, which is a necessary ingredient for the saganchamen.

Procedure: Peel off the bark of the branches of Hovenia acerba Lindl; place 15 branches into a milk bucket, and pour fresh milk into the bucket. Soon afterward, a thick layer of milk cakes will appear around the branches, called sagan. However, sagan cannot be stored for a long time.

There are many ways to eat sagan: Boil sagan together with meat and seasonings to make meat jerky; put butter into a pot, heat the pot, add sagan and a small amount of sugar to make sagan soup; or boil sagan, then cool it in the air, and mix it with peppers, coriander, wild onions, and yogurt to make a cool dish; or prepare steamed buns stuffed with sagan and meat.

Tibet is also home to the Moinba and Luoba people. Their dietetic habits are similar to those of the Tibetan people, but each having its own special delicacies, such as:

Odd Taste Cakes—荞麦饼 (Made by the Moinba people)

It is also known as baked buckwheat cake applied with honey. Before eating the cake, people may spread a paste made of milk residues, salt and pepper powder on the cake. Many people like to drink vegetable or potato soup while eating cake. It is delicious and nutritious.

Formation and Characteristics of Qinghai Cuisine

Located in the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Qinghai is the birth-place of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. With an elevation of 2,500-4,500 m, Qinghai has been one of the important pasture areas in China. Most of the farming areas are located east of the Sun and Moon Mountain. The local people of Qinghai mainly eat beef, mutton, and milk products.

The geography and cultural environment of Qinghai have decided on the province’s diversity of foods. Qinghai is inhabited by Han, Tibetan, Hui, Sala, Mongolia, and Kazak ethnic groups; the people of every ethnic minority group live in compact communities, and each ethnic group shows its own unique dietetic style. Qinghai is adjacent to Tibet. Since ancient times, Qinghai and Tibet have conducted frequent economic and cultural exchanges with each other. Accordingly, the Tibetan people in Qinghai eat similar food with the Tibetan people.

The Mongolian and Kazak peoples in Qinghai have lived with all the other ethnic groups in Qinghai for quite a long time. Due to the special climate on the plateau, the Mongolian and Kazak peoples have absorbed the dietetic habits of other ethnic groups while retaining their traditional customs.

To adapt to the plateau climate featuring oxygen deficiency, Qinghai dishes and snacks are mainly made of beef, mutton and milk products; and many dishes combine meat with wheaten foods. A saying goes: “The inland people enjoy dishes, and the Qinghai people eat steamed buns."

Some Famous Dishes and Snacks of Qinghai

The dishes prepared with the sturgeons living in the Qinghai Lake (青海湖湟鱼) are especially delicious, such as:

Braised Sturgeon in Soy Sauce—红烧湟鱼

Steamed Sturgeon in Clear Soup—清蒸湟鱼

Steamed Whole Sheep—冶全羊

Steamed Whole Sheep is a famous dish of Xining. Procedure: Boil whole wether; spread salt, Chinese prickly ash powder, ginger power on the sheep; steam it until it is well done; take off the bones and press the sheep flat, making it look like lying sheep. After the sheep cools down in the air, slice the sheep and sell the mutton. With both fat and lean mutton, this snack is not greasy, and without the smell of mutton. The mutton may be eaten together with baked cakes or cool noodles.

Fried Dough Pieces with Mutton—羊肉炒面片

Fried Dough Pieces with Mutton is a famous snack of Qinghai. Procedure: Make a dough with flour; prepare nail-shaped noodles with the dough; boil the noodles; fry the noodles together with the fried beef, mutton, garlic bolts, starch noodles, snack melons, and eggplants. This snack is refreshing, smooth, delicious and nutritious, and loved by both the old and the young.

Sour Milk—酸奶子

Sour Milk is a famous snack in Qinghai. Procedure: Boil fresh milk; add a small amount of sour milk to the milk; wait seven to eight hours until the milk is fermented. This snack is sour, sweet and nutritious with a faint smell.

Du Niangpi—杜酿皮

Du Niangpi, a famous snack of Xining, was created by a person by the surname of Du, hence the name. Procedure: Put the dough in water; knead the dough with hands into gluten and starch paste; steam the starch paste into cakes; cut the cakes into stripes; cut the steamed gluten into cubes; mix them. After proper preparations, it may be served as dishes or staple food and can be eaten hot or cold.

Sweet Unfiltered Wine—甜醅

Sweet Unfiltered Wine is a noted snack of Qinghai. Procedure: Boil highland barleys; ferment it by adding yeast to it. The unfiltered wine is sweet and nutritious, with a faint smell. It can whet people’s appetite and is good for digestion. Therefore, the snack is loved by both old people and children.

Kunguo—锟锅

Kunguo, a kind of leavened pancakes, is a must food for the Tibetan people in Qinghai when they celebrate traditional festivals and hold wedding and funeral ceremonies. Procedure: Apply safflowers, red yeast, tonka beans and turmeric to a dough; prepare the dough in red, green and yellow colors; bake the cakes with a special pot. It was named kunguo by the Tibetan people. Crisp outside and soft inside, kunguo has a strong aroma and is easy to be stored.

Other common snacks of Qinghai include:

Fried Cake Slices—朵面片

Grid-like Deep-fried Dough Twists—馓子

Fried Cake—油饼

Instant-boiled Mutton—涮羊肉

Mutton Cubes Roasted on a Skewer—烤羊肉串

Mutton Eaten with Fingers—手把羊肉

Roast Sheep Leg—烤羊腿