Yak in Yunnan

On location in Yunnan, Southwest China.

Mom and I recently had a little vacation in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. It was our first time to the region, and we had such a good time, we're already talking about going back. I'll publish a series of stories about Yunnan's weird meat choices over the next few weeks.



Yucky yak steak.

Yunnan borders Tibet, and there are lots of Tibetan people in the area, so naturally, you can find lots of yak meat and yak butter tea. The first we tried was in Dali's old city -- yak steak at a Tibetan theme guesthouse restaurant. It was sweeter than we expected -- sweeter than beef, and not musky like mutton (we expected it to, but were pleasantly surprised, not being big fans of lamb and mutton). This yak steak was tenderized to a flaccid pulp and we shared the leftovers with many of the cute puppies whimpering about. (What is it with Dali and Lijiang -- everyone seems to have a brand new puppy, and they're the most irresistibly cute doggies we've seen anywhere.) We didn't see any on the menu, so we can't tell you if they are as delicious as they are cute.



Little puppy wants some yak scraps.

Next day, before a gorgeous trip up the mountain overlooking Dali and Erhu lake, we had our first yak butter tea. I'm not sure how authentic this one was, but it was by far our favorite of all the yak butter teas we'd try over the next week. It was frothed up like a creamy cappuccino, with sweet-spicy tea (like Indian chai), and yak milk and butter blended into a expertly balanced flavor. Mmmm. One of the culinary highlights of our trip.



Fancy yuppie yak butter tea with frothy yak milk.

Lijiang is further into yak country, so we had the more authentic stuff here. We started with a fine little meal at the infamously named "Flourishing Sanck" [sic] near the village square, which features such chinglish menu doozies as "Potato The Crap". We ordered the stir-fried yak with celery, which was great, and so much better than that sad excuse for a yak steak in Dali. And we ordered the "small pot" of the yak butter tea. This turned out to be an enormous pot enough for 10 people. Completely different from that sophisticated concoction in Dali, this was the real stuff, with a strong yakky-butter smell, and no creaminess. We still liked it, and didn't find it as off-putting as many tourists complain about, but we admit liking the yuppie one better.



Welcome to Flourishing Sanck!

Exploring the charming cobbled-laned village of Lijiang, we found several shacks selling yak jerkies and various dried yak meats. We tasted a lot of these and found them scrumptious.



The spicy fatty one made a nice snack on top of the Jade Snow Mountain. The area around here -- you can see why they're claiming it as the mythical inspiration for Shangri-La. Naxi-Dongba culture is unique -- claims to be the world's only surviving matriarchal society, and the only pictographic language -- and there's an incredible range of herbs, edible plants and mushrooms and flowers.



Atop Jade Snow Mountain (YuLong Shan) north of Lijiang, near Tibet.




Mom, did you fart? Or is that the yak butter tea?

Bylakuppe

We were doing yoga in Mysore, India. That's where the Ashtanga people go. Most of these people are vegetarians, as are most people in India. Actually, most of these Ashtanga yoga people that go to Mysore, they're not from India, but they're still vegetarian.



Bylakuppe's Golden Temple -- a slice of Tibet in tropical South India



Anyway, one of these vegetarians told us of a place nearby called Bylakuppe. Bylakuppe is a secret hide-away resort for Buddhist monks who like to eat beef. Tsk tsk. Ok, seriously... Bylakuppe is one of many Tibetan refugee villages in India.

We were getting all ready to go there when we were told it was closed to visitors because the week before, the Dalai Lama and his groupie, Richard Gere, had been there to do a speech, and there has been some vague threat. We're not sure who would make a threat like this, hmm? Then, on our last week in India, we received the good news that Bylakuppe had again been opened to visitors, but that I should bring my passport. They didn't check it...



There's about 10,000 Tibetans living in the Bylakuppe area. They've got these really cool Tibetan temples there, and Tibetan monks walking around, ironically surrounded by coconut palm trees. And if you walk down the village street, there are shops with all sorts of tourist trinkets (Fr33 T!bet shirts, I heart NY hats, Che Guevara posters, incense) and ... beef momos!

Now here's the thing. Buddhists don't eat meat. I wrote a college paper about this years ago: The Buddhist Diet. But, and you can ask the Dalai Lama himself, the Tibetan Buddhists don't have access to many vegetables up thar in them hills, so they kinda gotta eat meat to survive. That's why, when you walk down this village street in the middle of holy-cow country vegetarian South India, you see all these dudes dressed in saffron and burgundy robes, chowing down on beef beef beef.

What's a momo? A momo is the national dish of Tibet. Well, if it were a nation, that is. When in Bylakuppe, it feels like a nation. Almost. Anyway, a momo is a steamed dumpling. They do make some vegetarian momos, but the ones filled with beef are the famous ones. We tried several of the momo shacks on the street, and there was one restaurant that was way best, it's the one in the pic below.



We've had momos in other countries, but the Bylakuppe momos were really yummy, and after several weeks without any meat, the beef was like a protein mainline hit that got us all goofy and giddy and ready to rock, but admittedly we felt a twinge of guilt.



We'd grown fond of our neighbor's cow in Mysore, and enjoyed her milk. We also liked the cute pigs that came by to eat our trash every afternoon. Pigs in India? That's what we thought at first, and then we learned about the Coorgi people, who eat pigs, unlike the Muslims and Hindus. Everybody's gotta have their thing, eh?

Here's a question -- in India, what happens to the male cow?



Tibetan monks watching a cricket match on TV in Bylakuppe, India



You see these signs around the village