Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • NPR

    Tsampa: The Tibetan Cereal That Helped Spark An Uprising

    This roasted barley flour has been a Tibetan staple for centuries. When China annexed Tibet in the 1950s, tsampa became a rallying point for the resistance. But will it catch on in America?
    by Susie Neilson Jun 23, 2019 5 minutes
    A bowl of tsampa flour pictured with other dishes in a typical Tibetan lunch. Counterclockwise from left: potatoes in turmeric and cumin; <em>liangfen;</em> mung bean jelly and spring onions with cilantro, triple-fried in red chili pepper; and black tea. To make <em>pa</em>, the tsampa would be mixed with butter, tea, salt and sometimes Tibetan cheese.

    On rare occasions as a kid, Renzin Yuthok and his family got to share a special breakfast. They'd gather around a table in their home in Bellevue, Wash., his dad would roll tsampa flour, butter and tea into balls called pa, and then he'd hand them out to his kids.

    The meal served a symbolic purpose for Yuthok: "From a very young age, [Tibetans] are taught that ... reclaiming our homeland ... is what our highest aspiration could be," he says. Yuthok's family fled Tibet in the 1950s, but their breakfast — and its grounding ingredient, tsampa — kept him connected to that dream.

    The word tsampa in Tibetan usually refers to ground-up, roasted barley flour, although occasionally the flour comes from wheat or another grain. It can be made into cereal, mashed into a or mixed with yak butter and tea at religious ceremonies and can be incorporated into wedding cakes. The Dalai Lama he eats it for breakfast.

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from NPR

    NPR3 min read
    Renowned Painter And Pioneer Of Minimalism Frank Stella Dies At 87
    Frank Stella was one of America's leading minimalist artists and a pioneer of the minimalist movement of the early 1960s. The movement challenged the idea that art was meant to be representative.
    NPR7 min read
    She Survived The 1970 Kent State Shooting. Here's Her Message To Student Activists
    On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired on Kent State students, killing four and wounding nine. A former student who now teaches there reflects on that day and offers lessons for protesters now.
    NPR4 min readInternational Relations
    Senior UN Official Says Northern Gaza Is Now In 'Full-blown Famine'
    Cindy McCain, the American director of the U.N. World Food Program, became the most prominent official so far to declare that trapped civilians in northern Gaza had gone over the brink into famine.

    Related