Ruta Sevo's Blog: Roots of My Writing - Posts Tagged "dumplings"

Living at such a high altitude, what do Tibetans eat? Their livestock includes yak, goats, and sheep, so they have meat and milk. The most important crop is barley, which is roasted and milled into flour. Thus bread and noodles are staples, and rice in lower regions. They are able to grow potatoes, oranges, bananas, and lemons. The livestock provides yoghurt, butter, and cheese.

Many accounts of Tibetans getting together involves drinking tsampa, or butter tea. Travelers and pilgrims in Tibet tell of being offered tea at every turn. A piece of black brick tea is thrown into boiling water to steep. A little salt is added. Then a glob of butter is added, and maybe a little barley flour, I’ve read, to make it a meal.

This is not too different from the English and Indian style of drinking tea with milk added, and sometimes sugar. With the butter and salt, though, it sounds like a broth to our tastes. I asked myself how people could survive drinking this all day. I thought about how it replenishes fluids all day, satisfies hunger, adds salt, and provides some nourishment. Maybe the constant stimulant is healthy, as we think now about green tea.

The steamed dumplings are interesting to me, because dumplings and meat-stuffed buns sound like a universal. The Chinese have steamed dumplings. Russians, Poles, and Eastern Europeans eat pierogi, which is a bun stuffed with meat and/or cabbage. My forefathers the Lithuanians made kuldunai, much like Italian tortellini. South Americans eat empanadas, or meat-stuffed pies that you can hold in your hand. Maybe the American sandwich, hamburger and hotdog evolved from meat-stuffed dumplings and breads.

Tibetan Meat Momos – Steamed Dumplings

Mix ground beef with water, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce, chopped green onions and ground cumin. Make a rising dough. Roll it out. Put meat mixture in 4” circles, fold them over into a half-moon or like a basket. Cook in a steamer.