Sweet Tooth

Dessert isn’t really a thing in Tibet, but in Yeshi’s village, where there are two harvests in a year, all kinds of fruit trees thrive and provide an abundance of pleasure for those with a sweet tooth. Honey is also widely collected and used in snacks and with bread.

A hallmark of sweet Tibetan food is that it is usually combined with savoury ingredients to form dishes that non-Asian people may find surprising. The sweetest treats, for example, are typically made with cheese. In some parts of Tibet one popular sweet snack is a hand-made pasta-based dish cooked with sugar, butter and grated cheese – essentially a sweet mac ‘n’ cheese. Elsewhere, thue is a sweet dish made of cheese, walnuts, brown sugar and butter.