Alexandra David-Néel at the table

On the High Plateau, there is no starter-main-dessert structure: everything revolves around two inseparable pillars, butter tea (po cha) and roasted barley flour (tsampa). First, you drink the tea, leaving a little at the bottom of your wooden bowl, then you pour in the tsampa and knead a nourishing dumpling with your finger. Noodles, dumplings, and dried meat provide extra sustenance on feast days or during travel. The cuisine unfolds around the central hearth of the black tent or the house, where yak butter reigns supreme.

Yak butter — fatty, slightly sour, almost cheese-like — and tsampa (ground roasted barley) form the foundational pair of the entire Tibetan table. It is the food Alexandra shared for months on Himalayan trails, huddled against the cold of high mountains.