Tsampa

Tsampa is a glutinous meal of roasted flour, primarily barley though sometimes wheat or tree peony seed flour, that serves as a traditional staple food of Tibet, the wider Himalayan region and Mongolia, where it is known as zamba. Because the flour is already roasted, tsampa requires no further cooking, making it a convenient food for travelers and nomads; the traditional preparation mixes the flour with Tibetan butter tea and kneads it by hand into a dumpling-like consistency, described by one traveler as stirred gently with the forefinger before being kneaded. Tsampa can also be prepared as a sweet porridge called jham-thoo or as a meat-stock congee called tsam-thug, and it has remained central to Tibetan food culture for centuries.