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Taste Tibet: Family recipes from the Himalayas
Dumplings, Noodles, and Bowls for Comfort, Pleasure, and Wellbeing in the first comprehensive Tibetan cookbook
Nourishing, simple, seasonal food that heals as well as fuels:
This way of eating might be popular today, but it has been traditional in Tibet for over 8,000 years. Taste Tibet is a collection of over 80 recipes from the Tibetan Plateau, written for today’s home cook. Create comforting soups and stews, discover the secrets of hand-pulled noodles, and learn everything you need to know about making and eating momo dumplings, Tibet’s most legendary and addictive culinary export.
Alongside the recipes, award-winning food writer Julie Kleeman and Tibetan cook Yeshi Jampa, who run the Taste Tibet restaurant and food stall, interweave stories of Yeshi’s childhood in Tibet, and the shared love of food that brought them together. They reveal nomadic Himalayan food culture and practices, including mindful eating and communal cooking—a way of life that celebrates family, togetherness, and respect for food—while exploring the relationship between landscape and diet, evoking the simple, subtle, and unique flavors of Tibet.
Nourishing, simple, seasonal food that heals as well as fuels:
This way of eating might be popular today, but it has been traditional in Tibet for over 8,000 years. Taste Tibet is a collection of over 80 recipes from the Tibetan Plateau, written for today’s home cook. Create comforting soups and stews, discover the secrets of hand-pulled noodles, and learn everything you need to know about making and eating momo dumplings, Tibet’s most legendary and addictive culinary export.
Alongside the recipes, award-winning food writer Julie Kleeman and Tibetan cook Yeshi Jampa, who run the Taste Tibet restaurant and food stall, interweave stories of Yeshi’s childhood in Tibet, and the shared love of food that brought them together. They reveal nomadic Himalayan food culture and practices, including mindful eating and communal cooking—a way of life that celebrates family, togetherness, and respect for food—while exploring the relationship between landscape and diet, evoking the simple, subtle, and unique flavors of Tibet.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published March 17, 2022
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103 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 5, 2023
Julie Kleeman won the Yan-Kit So Memorial Award for Food Writers on Asia in 2019, and this book is the result. She writes engagingly on the culture, food traditions and produce of Tibet in between the recipes provided by her husband Yeshi Jampa. The photography/artistic design is beautiful. I enjoyed reading this cookbook but don't plan to make any recipes from it, so the rating is only for the narrative.
February 1, 2022
Out of all the recipe books I've looked at digitally to review (Mexican, Baltic, Korean-American, "eat meat and lots of it because plants want to kill you!!"). this was definitely the one whose contents I could predict the least. And that has nothing to do with one of the creators not even knowing recipe books existed until well into his adulthood. This we are told comes generally from family dishes and decades of use of what is easy to grow at altitude, from eastern areas of Tibet, but with Nepalese, Chinese and Indian street cuisine ideas beginning to blend in. The creators have a restaurant in Oxford alongside mobile catering units to spread the word.
Beyond the actual dishes I saw a split here, where this is supposed to be a place where food is revered as a gift and families dip into their pick of multiple dishes, generally in silence to appreciate it more, and yet where you have a day's stock of roasted barley flour to take with you into the fields for snacking, and pickled mooli for snacking through the day, and cured yak meat for snacking, and so on. So is it communal and carefully thought of, or it is handfuls after handfuls?
Well, we're promised it's not the latter, for exorbitant tastes are unheard of, as is wastefulness. That said, the cuisine has again been developed for altitude, a balance of the humours, and definitely with an eye to how cold it is up there, so you'd expect sharing pots of soups, stews and stir-fries. What there is is probably a great surprise – little in the way of rice, and with both stir-fried ramson stems and nettle soup, and fungi shaped like jellied human ears, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you've tuned into Atomic Shrimp. I certainly felt on more expected terrain with the large chapter on momos – think smaller manti, if you've been to Uzbekistan. This section, of home-made then steamed dumplings and gnocchi etc was probably more in line with what I might have foreseen.
But I think this book has too much donkey work (sorry, yak work) to do – it has to get us from breakfast to bedtime with all points in between, salads, dips, breads... And so when it says stir-fries are nearly the be-all and end-all of Tibetan cuisine, and then gives us a bare handful, it's because things are trying to go for excess and be over-stuffed after all. I get where it says stir-fry ingredients can be swapped out ad infinitum based on freshness and preference, but these didn't read as different from any of the world's other stir-fries, and the fact remains the thing probably deserved twice as many momo stuffings as it gets, twice as many soups, and five times this and that. And while it does like to hand-hold and write about each and every dish, and give full-page photos for almost every one too, there wasn't that much wasteful lifestyle porn that could have been dropped.
Also, one final hiccough is that a lot of these do involve specific ingredients, from the mooli to a lot of talk of a specific 'black vinegar'. Now, is that malt, or something uniquely Chinese/Asian and that I've never come across? Buy Chinese, we are told – but nare a mention of substitutes. Don't get me wrong, this book must rank as a success, and I did screengrab more dishes than I normally do – but on a fomo rush, I guess, and not because I felt this was a superlative volume. It's a fine and handy one, but also a little frustrating at times, especially when it seems to be just touching the surface. Four stars then feels a touch generous.
Beyond the actual dishes I saw a split here, where this is supposed to be a place where food is revered as a gift and families dip into their pick of multiple dishes, generally in silence to appreciate it more, and yet where you have a day's stock of roasted barley flour to take with you into the fields for snacking, and pickled mooli for snacking through the day, and cured yak meat for snacking, and so on. So is it communal and carefully thought of, or it is handfuls after handfuls?
Well, we're promised it's not the latter, for exorbitant tastes are unheard of, as is wastefulness. That said, the cuisine has again been developed for altitude, a balance of the humours, and definitely with an eye to how cold it is up there, so you'd expect sharing pots of soups, stews and stir-fries. What there is is probably a great surprise – little in the way of rice, and with both stir-fried ramson stems and nettle soup, and fungi shaped like jellied human ears, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you've tuned into Atomic Shrimp. I certainly felt on more expected terrain with the large chapter on momos – think smaller manti, if you've been to Uzbekistan. This section, of home-made then steamed dumplings and gnocchi etc was probably more in line with what I might have foreseen.
But I think this book has too much donkey work (sorry, yak work) to do – it has to get us from breakfast to bedtime with all points in between, salads, dips, breads... And so when it says stir-fries are nearly the be-all and end-all of Tibetan cuisine, and then gives us a bare handful, it's because things are trying to go for excess and be over-stuffed after all. I get where it says stir-fry ingredients can be swapped out ad infinitum based on freshness and preference, but these didn't read as different from any of the world's other stir-fries, and the fact remains the thing probably deserved twice as many momo stuffings as it gets, twice as many soups, and five times this and that. And while it does like to hand-hold and write about each and every dish, and give full-page photos for almost every one too, there wasn't that much wasteful lifestyle porn that could have been dropped.
Also, one final hiccough is that a lot of these do involve specific ingredients, from the mooli to a lot of talk of a specific 'black vinegar'. Now, is that malt, or something uniquely Chinese/Asian and that I've never come across? Buy Chinese, we are told – but nare a mention of substitutes. Don't get me wrong, this book must rank as a success, and I did screengrab more dishes than I normally do – but on a fomo rush, I guess, and not because I felt this was a superlative volume. It's a fine and handy one, but also a little frustrating at times, especially when it seems to be just touching the surface. Four stars then feels a touch generous.
March 18, 2022
I'm always interested in food from other regions of the world, so when this came up on Netgalley I knew I needed to review it.
This book has been divided into 8 main chapters plus an Introduction to Tibetan food and its culture.
- Breakfast
- cold dishes
- Rice & stir-fries
- noodles, soups & stews
- Dumplings, pasties & bread
- Sauces & dips
- street food favourites
- sweet tooth
This is a lovely book. Most recipes have a colour photograph to accompany them. The ingredients are provided in both metric and imperial terms. The number of portions are provided. The ingredients are in British terms, but there are also the American terms available in the ingredients list of each recipe. The steps are easy-to-follow.
In the noodles chapter it provides details on how to make your own noodles - it's rather like making pasta, though you stretch the noodles out. If a recipe is either vegan or vegetarian then the page makes it clear.. There is also a tip at the end of each recipe. In the dumpling chapter, there are step by steps pictures for making the dumplings which is very handy.
I'd certainly like to make the Famous Chicken Curry alongside a Balep, Tibetan flatbread and the sesame chicken.
At the rear of the book is a list of ingredients and whether they can be found in Chinese or Indian grocery stores.
I loved this book and can't wait to get a copy for myself and start cooking the lovely dishes.
I received this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.
This book has been divided into 8 main chapters plus an Introduction to Tibetan food and its culture.
- Breakfast
- cold dishes
- Rice & stir-fries
- noodles, soups & stews
- Dumplings, pasties & bread
- Sauces & dips
- street food favourites
- sweet tooth
This is a lovely book. Most recipes have a colour photograph to accompany them. The ingredients are provided in both metric and imperial terms. The number of portions are provided. The ingredients are in British terms, but there are also the American terms available in the ingredients list of each recipe. The steps are easy-to-follow.
In the noodles chapter it provides details on how to make your own noodles - it's rather like making pasta, though you stretch the noodles out. If a recipe is either vegan or vegetarian then the page makes it clear.. There is also a tip at the end of each recipe. In the dumpling chapter, there are step by steps pictures for making the dumplings which is very handy.
I'd certainly like to make the Famous Chicken Curry alongside a Balep, Tibetan flatbread and the sesame chicken.
At the rear of the book is a list of ingredients and whether they can be found in Chinese or Indian grocery stores.
I loved this book and can't wait to get a copy for myself and start cooking the lovely dishes.
I received this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.
October 2, 2022
I was going to give this a truly scathing review, but then I looked up typical Tibetan recipes. They are not much different than those given in this book.
Why such a low rating? First, perhaps, Tibetan cooking must not be particularly interesting. That's my only guess. I ate some Nepali cooking prepared by a Nepal cultural group, and it was much more like Indian food--spicy, sweet, full of chickpeas, kidney beans, pancakes, etc.
The recipes in this book are profoundly bland--they use water instead of broth, for example. And really, these are recipes for foods cooked in a London food stall by the authors. So while they may be close approximations of Tibetan cooking, that may be all they are. A flatbread made with self-rising flour and water. Soft hand-pulled noodles--exactly like the ones my German-American mom taught me to make. Beef "soups" that aren't really traditional because the Tibetans would eat domestic yak, not beef. Etc. Some of the recipes are so similar, I have no idea why such an expensively produced book was published for them.
The photos are lovely, as is the story of the couple who wrote the book. Or at least, the wife wrote it, using her husband's recipes. I borrowed the book from the library, and returned it almost immediately. It is just not a valuable cookbook.
Why such a low rating? First, perhaps, Tibetan cooking must not be particularly interesting. That's my only guess. I ate some Nepali cooking prepared by a Nepal cultural group, and it was much more like Indian food--spicy, sweet, full of chickpeas, kidney beans, pancakes, etc.
The recipes in this book are profoundly bland--they use water instead of broth, for example. And really, these are recipes for foods cooked in a London food stall by the authors. So while they may be close approximations of Tibetan cooking, that may be all they are. A flatbread made with self-rising flour and water. Soft hand-pulled noodles--exactly like the ones my German-American mom taught me to make. Beef "soups" that aren't really traditional because the Tibetans would eat domestic yak, not beef. Etc. Some of the recipes are so similar, I have no idea why such an expensively produced book was published for them.
The photos are lovely, as is the story of the couple who wrote the book. Or at least, the wife wrote it, using her husband's recipes. I borrowed the book from the library, and returned it almost immediately. It is just not a valuable cookbook.
March 17, 2024
3/5, which from me, is a pretty good rating. I wish it were 3.5. The recipes are good, and they seem to mostly work, plus the book is well-written, and a very good read. It would be a 4-star review, but I have to dock them for the momo (dumpling) dough recipe. It failed so dramatically, it was virtually unusable. Which is annoying, because momos are a time-consuming process as it is, and when one finds themselves with a recipe that should make like 40, with a filling that won't last the night (since it was based on grated raw potato) so you can't take another crack tomorrow, and a dough that's so dry and brittle you can barely get 3 or 4 to hold together, there's a lot of sunk cost, in product, effort and time.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that 'self-rising flour' means something different in the UK, where the author is from, but I've never encountered this issue before, and this is not my first rodeo, when it comes to British cookbooks. I WAS able to try out a couple of the dumpling recipes, but only after I went onto the internet and tried out a couple different momo dough recipes. But I really shouldn't have had to do that, so I dock them a star.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that 'self-rising flour' means something different in the UK, where the author is from, but I've never encountered this issue before, and this is not my first rodeo, when it comes to British cookbooks. I WAS able to try out a couple of the dumpling recipes, but only after I went onto the internet and tried out a couple different momo dough recipes. But I really shouldn't have had to do that, so I dock them a star.
April 9, 2022
Taste Tibet by Julie Kleeman and Yeshi Jampa was a beautiful illustrated recipe book I had to ask my Hubby to buy it for my birthday. I loved everything about this Amazing recipe book.
It had everything you needed to know and was divided into 8 main chapters plus a lovely Introduction to Tibetan food and its culture which was beautifully written.
Breakfast, cold dishes, Rice & stir-fries, noodles, soups & stews, Dumplings, pasties & bread, Sauces & dips,
street food favourites and a section for us who have a sweet tooth.
Everything within this book, I wanted to create and invite my family and friends round for a nice dinner party.
I loved it especially all the ingredients, are provided in both metric and imperial terms. The ingredients are in British terms, but there are also the American terms available in the ingredients list of each recipe. The steps are so easy-to-follow which is great for me especially as I love this food.
I highly recommend this beautiful book. It will look great in my kitchen and will be used regularly in my house.
Big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Murdoch Books, for making this ARC available to me for a honest review.
It had everything you needed to know and was divided into 8 main chapters plus a lovely Introduction to Tibetan food and its culture which was beautifully written.
Breakfast, cold dishes, Rice & stir-fries, noodles, soups & stews, Dumplings, pasties & bread, Sauces & dips,
street food favourites and a section for us who have a sweet tooth.
Everything within this book, I wanted to create and invite my family and friends round for a nice dinner party.
I loved it especially all the ingredients, are provided in both metric and imperial terms. The ingredients are in British terms, but there are also the American terms available in the ingredients list of each recipe. The steps are so easy-to-follow which is great for me especially as I love this food.
I highly recommend this beautiful book. It will look great in my kitchen and will be used regularly in my house.
Big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Murdoch Books, for making this ARC available to me for a honest review.
January 25, 2022
Taste Tibet: Family Recipes from the Himalayas is a really beautiful book written by Julie Kleeman and her husband Yeshi Jampa. It really feels like a family recipe book with photos of Yeshi’s family in Tibet throughout the book.
The book provides a good overview of what Tibetan food is and it’s influences. My knowledge of Tibetan food was limited before reading this book. I now feel ready to try out the recipes and I can’t wait to make and sample the chocolate momos!
The book is nicely broken down into sections for: Breakfast; Cold Dishes; Rice and Stir-Fries; Noodles, Soups and Stews; Dumplings, Pasties and Bread; Street Food, etc. There are lots of vegan/vegetarian dishes to try. The photographs of the cooked dishes are beautiful - looking at them made me feel rather hungry and that I have to start cooking immediately!
Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Murdoch Books, for making this ARC available to me for a fair and honest review.
The book provides a good overview of what Tibetan food is and it’s influences. My knowledge of Tibetan food was limited before reading this book. I now feel ready to try out the recipes and I can’t wait to make and sample the chocolate momos!
The book is nicely broken down into sections for: Breakfast; Cold Dishes; Rice and Stir-Fries; Noodles, Soups and Stews; Dumplings, Pasties and Bread; Street Food, etc. There are lots of vegan/vegetarian dishes to try. The photographs of the cooked dishes are beautiful - looking at them made me feel rather hungry and that I have to start cooking immediately!
Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Murdoch Books, for making this ARC available to me for a fair and honest review.
April 24, 2022
I liked this book. It reaches me as a traveler but also as someone who is interested in other people's culture and how the way they live inspires them to share it with others - like me.
The book is divided into Tibetan food and culture. There's certainly a lot of recipes I'd like to try in this book, I found the tips at the end of the recipes quite helpful and I really enjoyed the selection of photography that accompanied the pages.
I found the ingredients list quite helpful and where to find stuff, I always find that's the hardest part of following cookbooks is when you don't have half the stuff readily available and have to go hunting.
Thanks to netgalley for the free ARC in return for my review.
The book is divided into Tibetan food and culture. There's certainly a lot of recipes I'd like to try in this book, I found the tips at the end of the recipes quite helpful and I really enjoyed the selection of photography that accompanied the pages.
I found the ingredients list quite helpful and where to find stuff, I always find that's the hardest part of following cookbooks is when you don't have half the stuff readily available and have to go hunting.
Thanks to netgalley for the free ARC in return for my review.
August 8, 2022
I liked this book a lot. I have been to Dharmsala and took several Tibetan cooking classes there but it was a long time ago. This book both revived those memories and also presented a much wider scope of recipes. I find that restaurant owners and chefs are often great food writers because they have worked out flavors and the equations of effort vs taste. There are a lot of great recipes in this book. Recommended.
August 10, 2022
First note to make is that I haven't made any recipes from this cookbook yet and will modify the review once I do. Looking forward to attempting momos.
A great exposure to culture of Tibet and I loved the tips sprinkled throughout. While there are references to less accessible ingredients (yak meat for example) there are plenty of substitutions that are listed that you can use (beef). There is a great mix of vegan and vegetarian options in here as well.
A great exposure to culture of Tibet and I loved the tips sprinkled throughout. While there are references to less accessible ingredients (yak meat for example) there are plenty of substitutions that are listed that you can use (beef). There is a great mix of vegan and vegetarian options in here as well.
December 21, 2023
A wonderful journey into the recipes, culture and heritage of Tibet. The recipes are detailed and it's fantastic that for pretty much every recipe there is a vegetarian and/or vegan option as well as a meat given. No more hopeful substitutions! A whole section on momos is needed and hugely informative, I've always wanted to learn these!
September 28, 2022
Interesting and detail book of Tibet life and food. Lots of recipes of what they eat. But I wasn’t too interested in the recipes. Some very Asian inspired and very simple. But I guess that’s what they eat. Good if you are into Tibet culture.
August 27, 2023
stunning photos
This book is as much a introduction to Tibet as it is a cookbook.
Stunning photos
Beautiful recipes
The food
Oops simple to make and ingredients easily found .
Looking forward to trying out the momos as I first tasted them in Nepal
This book is as much a introduction to Tibet as it is a cookbook.
Stunning photos
Beautiful recipes
The food
Oops simple to make and ingredients easily found .
Looking forward to trying out the momos as I first tasted them in Nepal
May 19, 2022
I read about Tibetan food and lifestyle from this book more than any other documentary available. Such an incredible lifestyle and remarkable habits! Recipes looks so delicious too.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews