Wondering if there is an equivalent kind of cheese in the West?
I bought a big hunk of soft white yak milk cheese about 10 days ago in Tibet. Probably a couple of pounds - actually more but I split it in half with a colleague. I bought a big old honking round of yak butter too. Anyhoo, the cheese is really soft and creamy, milk white, and much like a solid yogurt. Has a sour taste again much like yogurt. I’ve never quite had anything like this back home though.
When I was in the Tibetan monastary, one of the monks took care of us and we shared the yak butter tea (delicious), ground roasted barley (tastes literally like Cheerios) and some cheese. Not sure if that cheese was the same, but I think so. Except the cheese the monk gave use was dried out and much like a white aged parmesan. Man, was that tasty. It’s dried at 12,000 feet elevation and really dry environment.
Any thoughts on how to dry out the cheese I have to get something more like the really tasty stuff from the monastary?
The story behind all that is my company had an offsite with a bunch of customers in Lijiang, Yunnan province. A side trip was arranged to Shangri-la (aka zhongdian aka gyalthang). I had been there 20 years before, and returned with scans of the slides I took, including one of all the monks and lamas, and including a lama from India. Well, I took some clients and colleagues, and we went around the monastary and found several of the monks from the photo’s. Many were young boys who are now in their 20’s and 30’s. It was really cool for me to do that. And as part of all that, we ended up hanging out in some of the monk quarters and got to enjoy the food, drink and cheese. That really was good cheese.
I have no idea where you can get commercially available yak cheese. This stuff is sold on the street by nomads that come to town to raise some cash.
Anyhoo, just felt like sharing and since it’s food related should be cafe society.