This article is the 109th article in the series of food travel "Taste of China", formerly titled "Eating Rice Dumplings in Tibet", you can pay attention to the author to read related articles. This article is long, about 4000 words.
The specialty food of Tibet is not the sky-high price of Cordyceps sinensis, nor is it the yak jerky sold all over the street. Tibetans never eat Cordyceps sinensis, they have lived on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for thousands of years, and they have not found that this thing has any effect, but they are very excited about the Han people's admiration for this thing, and how good it is to make money. Tibetans also don't eat much beef, because they believe in Buddhism. The so-called yak jerky sold to tourists, fake goods accounted for nine out of ten, Tibet can not raise so many yaks, traditional yak beef is not the kind of red and black on the market, and it is dried with raw beef, our mainland people can't eat it, and they don't have that tooth. Besides, yak beef is no better nutritious than regular yellow beef.
Knife-sharpened yak jerky in Qamdo, Tibet, in 2016
Of course, locals do not eat or eat less, of course, it is not a special diet. The traditional tibetan diet for thousands of years is actually two things: rice dumplings and butter tea. The tea leaves still came from the interior, so it boiled down to only rice dumplings and ghee, the former made of barley and the latter beaten with milk.
When I first entered Tibet, I was very puzzled, ghee and butter tea can be seen everywhere, but I can't meet rice dumplings. That time into Tibet is a few people together, I can only sneak into the Tibetan restaurant twice, there is no rice on the menu, only noodles, buns, fried potatoes, etc., I remember passing by a grain and oil store in Lhasa, I saw the small blackboard written rice dumplings, but I don't know what it looks like. Strange, why is the most important staple food on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau missing?
The second time I climbed the roof of the world alone, I only ate in Tibetan restaurants, and I never saw rice dumplings for a long time. Until one time I had breakfast at a Tibetan restaurant on the Sichuan-Tibet Line, I saw that there were two kinds of fried noodles and Tibetan fried noodles on the menu, of course, I chose the latter. On the table is the bowl of ordinary-looking fried noodles, darker in color, mixed with hot water and stirred with a spoon for half a day before turning it off, only to feel that the entrance is rough and lacks the unique aroma of flour.
Fifteen bucks a piece, just a bowl of stuff? This is the Sichuan-Tibet Line, a place where tourists are dense, and it is understandable that you are expensive. If it's so expensive, why do you make it delicious? If the particles are rough because the milling equipment is too poor, what is the reason for the lack of aroma? Is it too long? I saw the lady boss leaning against the door frame leading to the kitchen, holding an enamel bowl in her hand, twisting what was in her mouth, asking her what she was eating, and she said that like me, it was all in this big bowl on the table. Since it was not easy to say anything, I silently swallowed the fried batter and turned to go out.
Shortly after driving away, it occurred to me that what I had just eaten was rice dumplings. Barley is also known as naked barley, barley and wheat are a family, the wheat milled flour is fried noodles, the Tibetan "rice dumplings" is the meaning of fried noodles. In fact, this thing has long been seen in Tibetan areas, and has not expected it, it is misled by the "粑" character in the Chinese translation of "粑粑", thinking that it is similar to Hubei rice dumplings, Guizhou huangshu and other food that is processed and cut into pieces.
At noon at the Qiangbalin Monastery in Qamdo, I met Tibetans who came to volunteer for lunch (see "Asking the Faces of the Beings of the Qiangbaling Monastery"), the food was brought from home, such as bread, buns, beef jerky, etc., and some bowls were yellow dough lumps, and the particles were visible to the naked eye. A sister-in-law held the bowl, kneaded it with her hand, and when she saw that I was curious, she handed it to me to taste, and I carefully took a small piece and threw it in my mouth, only to feel that the taste was rough, I ate less, and I didn't taste anything.
From the lunch of this group of Tibetans, it can be seen that not many people eat rice dumplings. But why is it that the rice and its raw material, the barley, are so closely linked to Tibet, and why is it not seen outside Tibet?
Later, I specifically checked the information to understand that barley is too important to Tibetans. Any nation that can continue to develop civilization for a long time must be based on the agricultural and pastoral social system. Due to the geographical factors of high cold and high altitude, the thin meadows in Tibetan areas cannot support the pure grazing production system similar to the Mongolians, and the traditional rice, wheat, corn, etc. in the world cannot be planted on the plateau, and it is precisely with the birth of barley, a particularly hardy crop (based on a certain accidental mutation), that the existence of Tibetan civilization has emerged. For thousands of years, at an altitude of more than 4500 meters, there was no other food crop except barley, which was the only staple food of the Tibetan people.
Compared with wheat, barley is not low in protein content, more comprehensive and balanced nutrition, if according to the current so-called whole wheat standard, barley is quite a good healthy ingredient.
Qing barley photographed in Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province in 2016
The disadvantages of barley are also obvious, not suitable for steamed buns, the plateau water boiling point is low, fuel is scarce, there is no more cooking and processing means, so the traditional way of eating barley is so simple - fried grinding powder. However, the seed coat of the barley is thick (I don't know if this description is accurate), and the ground flour tastes bad.
In this way, it is also understood why it is rare to get rice in Tibetan restaurants, which is the most common food that Tibetan families have, and does not need to be cooked. This is like selling noodles, buns, dumplings and other processed noodles in mainland restaurants, and fried noodles with little added value cannot be seen.
Fried noodles are the most traditional convenience food, the ancient sergeant ration is this, when the volunteer army into Korea also brought it, a handful of fried noodles a mouthful of snow mixed with swallowing. The staple food of Tibetans for thousands of years has been rice dumplings, which have rarely changed.
What is it like to eat fried noodles every day for a lifetime?
If you only have one option in your diet, you won't understand what bread and dumplings are, and some people will even think that people all over the world should love rice, and those who don't like rice are 2B (I've met many of these people). Tibetans who have eaten barley for thousands of years will not feel monotonous, because there is no contrast, no choice.
Diet is like that, family is like that, religion is like that, so is the social system, your choice is because there is no choice, and the tradition you praise is nothing more than the one you are forced to accept.
Qing Barley Tian, 2016, in Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province
Nowadays, noodles are served in Tibetan restaurants, and Tibetan eating habits have begun to change.
I specifically searched for relevant information and learned that around the 1960s, through the unremitting efforts of China's agricultural researchers, plateau hardy wheat was finally cultivated, and since then, Tibetans have had another staple food option. However, the traditional eating habits are still stubborn, the old people say that wheat flour to eat the stomach empty, rice more resistant to hunger, eating rice to work to have strength, young people do not understand these, like to eat noodles. This collision of tradition and modern diet is everywhere, the old people say the same, and the young people choose the same.
Tradition is always praised by the older generation, and tradition must always be discarded by the new generation, otherwise there is no modernity.
I heard about the benefits of rice dumplings in a Tibetan restaurant in Shigatse, and it was there that I learned that there were really delicious rice dumplings.
That was my second trip to Shigatse and my second breakfast at a Tibetan restaurant in Shigatse. The previous time was two years ago, when I returned from Nepal, I tasted a Tibetan bun in a Tibetan restaurant in Shigatse (see "Taste of China 57 Tibetan Buns in Shigatse and Nepal Mo:Mo"), during which I chatted for a long time with a Tibetan girl who was studying in Nanchang, the girl was about twenty years old, white and pure, and soft-spoken.
This time, when I went into the Tibetan restaurant, I ordered another Tibetan bun, which was served not long ago, and it was quite exquisite, but it was dumplings. However, the Tibetan bun is a general term, and it does not matter whether the bun is made or the shape of the dumpling.
While pondering this bun, two ladies dressed in local costumes sat down opposite, and compared with the last encounter, the two were a little older, adding up to one hundred and fifty years old.
They didn't speak Chinese, nodded and smiled at me, beckoned for a pot of butter tea, and pulled a few things out of their pockets. The one across from me took out a pretty red lacquered wooden bowl and a bulging red wooden box, and then pulled out a gray-white bag, like an old-fashioned money bag, obviously made of leather, very thick, and with a white rope at the top for tightening.
But she poured the butter tea into a mahogany bowl, then untied the white rope from the bag, placed it on the table, and then broke open the slippery red box, which was full of pale yellow paste. The old lady took out an unscheduled stainless steel spoon in the box and picked out a piece of the paste, which I recognized as ghee.
The old lady shook the ghee from the spoon into the bag, then put the spoon down, and held the leather bag in both hands and rubbed it. I looked at the shape of the bag, remembered something, and felt that there was a place for my lower body to tighten.
I was wondering what the old lady was doing, and a sturdy Tibetan man of about fifty sat down beside me, and in terms of dress and temperament, he looked like a cadre of some rank. The man greeted me very politely, ordered a bowl of noodles from the shop, and then talked to me.
Seeing my doubts, he said, "This is rice dumplings." ”
"Rice dumplings?" I asked confusedly.
The Tibetan man spoke a few words to the old lady opposite in Tibetan, and the old woman nodded, opened the bag in her hand, looked at it, and picked a large piece of ghee into it and rubbed it.
"That's how you eat it." The leader looks like a man.
The old lady opened the bag, reached out and dug out a small piece and brought it to me. I hesitated slightly, and then looked at the old lady's cloudy but sincere eyes, and then I took it and put it in my mouth, hey, this taste is different from before. The old lady looked at me with a look of surprise, a smile on her wrinkled face. She picked up some ghee into the bag and handed me the small bag. Very leathery bag, rough and warm to the touch.
"Made of sheepskin." The Tibetan man next to him said.
It should be raw sheepskin. I squeezed the bag hesitantly, and the old lady nodded her head in encouragement to me, and I understood, and rubbed it with a little force.
"That's how it is made in a sheepskin bag." The man introduced himself to me, and then talked about the benefits of rice dumplings.
I seem to understand a little, the rice dumplings are placed in a sheepskin bag, kneaded in the hands, just like kneading dough, a long time kneading, the temperature of the palm can also be transmitted, the ghee melts, and it can fully integrate with the rice dumplings, stimulating the aroma of ghee and fried noodles.
After rubbing it for a while, the old lady nodded, and I handed her the bag, and she opened it and handed it to me with a large piece of pale yellow rice and made another gesture. The Tibetan brother next to him said, "Knead again." ”
I squeezed the rice in the palm of my hand, rubbed it a few times, and then broke a piece into my mouth. This with body temperature, fully mixed rice dumplings, the feeling is different again, the entrance is still obviously rough, but the taste is better, fragrant, it is a sweet feeling that you are willing to chew slowly in the mouth, you can experience the melting ghee, and after the particles are broken, the oil mixed with the caramelized aroma of barley, from the mouth to the nose.
How can there be such a big difference? Compared to the fried noodles with hot water, special sheepskin bag kneading, patience and body temperature are all important factors in determining the taste, but I think that adding so much ghee has a greater impact, I used to eat rice dumplings and water, this time it is oil. Even the rough-tasting stick noodle nests that the poor in the north used to eat, smeared with a lump of butter or sandwiched with a large piece of braised pork, would be fragrant. The same handful of green vegetables, wide oil stir-frying and boiling feel like cloud mud, the former is a dish, the latter is fed to pigs.
After leaving the Tibetan restaurant in Shigatse, I remembered what the Tibetan man said about the life and religious significance of barley to Tibetans, and remembered that year in Tashilhunpo Monastery, not far away, I saw a monk sitting in front of a large wooden plate full of huge grains of wheat, and the monk twisted the grain of wheat and sprinkled it into the small bulging disc in the middle, chanting words in his mouth. One by one, the Tibetans came over and bowed and respectfully handed them offerings. Now I think, isn't that big grain of wheat barley (barley)?
I remembered again that just a day ago, eating dumplings in a Tibetan restaurant in Gyantse County, I inadvertently took a photo of a boat-shaped offering platform, carved with a white lion and a green dragon, with five-colored grain ears, and there were two kinds of offerings in the middle, flour on the left and wheat grains on the right.
Now I understand that flour is rice and wheat grains are barley. In fact, I have seen them countless times in Tibetan areas, but I have never realized it.
Tibetans offer barley to the gods, praying for good wind and rain, because it is the god-given food for this nation to reproduce. Just like the Han people of our Central Plains culture, they once regarded the gods of the society (land gods) and ji gods (ceres gods) incarnated in the incarnation of land and grain as our most important primitive worship objects, even equivalent to the state (sheji).
However, how many Han people still know that millet is the root of the diet of the Central Plains civilization, and flour has replaced millet as a staple food for more than a thousand years. Tradition is the foundation of a nation, but tradition is always eroded or even replaced by modernity. Millet is not a rival to noodle buns, and Qingbari and Shaoxing daughter Hong can't do foreign beer and shochu.
Just like the Tibetan man next to me, who enthusiastically introduced me to barley culture, he ordered a bowl of beef noodles.
Since then, this article has also answered this question: A green food produced on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, rich in nutrients and beneficial to health, why can't it be seen anywhere in the mainland? The answer is simple: not tasty.
Who knows? Delicious or not is also defined, the taste is even more with the flow, the so-called yak beef has become a representative of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau health food, no nutritious barley tea can be boasted as a healthy drink. Barley is a type of barley that may be stir-fried one day. If that's normal, the rice dumplings are fried.
Photographed in 2016 at Qiangbaling Monastery in Qamdo, Tibet
Original graphics, please do not reprint.