This is tsampa, the stable food of the Himalayan plateau. It is a thick, dry paste made from barley flour, yak butter, sugar and water, and although I’ve heard many foreigners absolutely despise the stuff, Cam and I quite liked it.

Our enjoyment of tsampa was, however, perhaps partly due to the circumstances of our first tasting it. We were in Bamei, a small, wild town in Ganzi County, Western Sichuan. Bamei is surrounded by grasslands of incredible beauty, and on several of the flat plains are found gleaming, jewel-like monasteries. One day, we walked from Bamei to one of these monasteries, Hui Yuan Si, which, although it only took about 3 hours, because of the high altitude was totally exhausting.

After wandering around the monastery buildings for a while, we were invited into a second storey room for some refreshments, which turned out to be tsampa, a food that I’d heard much about. The table was laid with enamel bowls of barley flour and yak butter, a jar of sugar, and two rice bowls.

A middle-aged monk, who had lived in the monastery for over twenty years, gave us instructions on how to make our tsampa. First, our rice bowls were half-filled with boiled water, to which we were told to add a few hefty chunks of yak butter. We waited one moment to let the butter start to melt in the hot water, and then on top of this buttery-watery mixture piled about three generous tablespoons of barley flour and one of sugar.

Then, the mixing began, first with a chopstick, and finally with one’s fingers; as the author of this site insightfully remarks, ‘making tsampa is in many ways like working with clay’. I’ve always loved making bread and eating Indian curries with my hands; making tsampa had much the same appeal.

Once the paste was smooth and uniform it was ready to eat. We were told to break off a little piece of dough, pop it into our mouths, and then take a sip of hot water from a separate cup (presumably to prevent the tsampa from being too dry and sticky). The texture of tsampa perhaps takes a little getting used to (although halva lovers like myself would have no problem), but the taste was undeniably delicious – rich, wholesome, and to me, highly redolent of Western breakfast cereals.

We learnt later that the monks at Hui Yuan Si usually eat tsampa at every meal, and only occasionally get other foods such as vegetables or rice. Although barley, the main component of tsampa, contains all eight essential amino acids, nonetheless I doubt it provides much in the way of proper nourishment. So though I really enjoyed tsampa, and even bought a bag of barley flour to take back to Chengdu, I don’t think I’ll be converting to the Himalayan diet just yet.