Best Black Tea – A Nepalese Food Quiz

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One thing you will do when you travel in Nepal is drink a lot of tea.

The teapot first arrives around 6am outside your tent with a cheery “Black tea!”. You struggle out of your sleeping bag or, more often, struggle in your sleeping bag to unzip the tent flap and grasp that boiling hot tin cup of tea either sweetened with three large teaspoons of sugar (the Nepali way) or not.

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Early Morning Cup of Tea

One of our Sherpas often called out “Best black tea!” We thought he was proud of his tea until we returned to Kathmandu and realised the stock in the supermarket was called just that – Best Black Tea.

The teapot will appear again at breakfast, then at lunch, then afternoon tea and lastly as a final note to the day after dinner. (While we were working in the village, the pot also appeared at morning tea time but in this case it would have ‘juice’ in it (otherwise known as hot cordial).)

Another thing you will do when you travel in Nepal is eat. A lot. Provided you’ve chosen your trekking company well, you will be suitably nourished in order to lift that hammer, shift that rock or climb that mountain.

Breakfast in the Sunshine

My friend Sue over at Travel Tales of Life likes to conduct a food quiz of the unusual delicacies she experiences on her travels. With her permission, I have pinched the idea for a Nepalese Food Quiz.

There’s just one teensy problem.

Sue is a highly regarded and experienced travel blogger and as such knows to take photographs of the food she eats just in case it comes in useful for a blog post. (Like this one.)

My first instinct when presented with a delicious plate of food is to eat it.

Sue also appears to travel in a slightly higher economic category than I and often has beautifully presented restaurant-standard single-named dishes with which to conduct her quiz.

My meals were presented on metal plates in a tent with up to eight different dishes on the one plate.

Like this one:

Food Plate

Actually, you’ll notice I had started to eat this one too.

That’s it. That’s the only photo I’ve got. (Well, that’s not strictly true. There’s one more I took when we picnicked beside a river during the trek. But I’ve already used that one in another post.) And you only got this one because I happened to have my phone in my pocket.

So I’m having to improvise.

Most of the images in the quiz are sourced from the Nepalese Cook Book I purchased in Kathmandu but am yet to tackle in an attempt to replicate in my own kitchen what our cook achieved over a two-burner kerosene stove in a tent.

Culinary delights await

But however the images have been sourced, I promise you I ate every single one in Nepal.

So. Rules.

  1. Each food name has been assigned a number and each photograph has been assigned a letter. Please list all answers in numeric-alpha format. This is to sooth my OCD Mathematician tendencies. Danke.
  2. Googling is permitted within reason. You may also Yahoo or Bing if you want to add an extra challenge. If you’re feeling radical, try DuckDuckGo.
  3. If you break rules 1 and 2, nothing will happen. We’re not playing for sheep stations, people.

I will publish the winners in a couple of weeks. Or, you know, when I feel like it. Get in early to avoid disappointment.

Ready?

Food Names

  1. Tato Dudh
  2. Anda Tarkari
  3. Saag
  4. Alu Paratha
  5. Suji Ko Haluwa
  6. Chayote
  7. Dal Bhat
  8. Phini Roti
  9. Rajma Tarkari
  10. Momo

Food Photographs

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

 

Good luck and remember it’s supposed to be fun.

 

 

 

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80 thoughts on “Best Black Tea – A Nepalese Food Quiz”

  2. I will not make an attempt, but I will say they all look good and I’m sure they were great cooked by a Sherpa on a kerosene stove in a tent and eaten at an altitude usually reserved for yaks (or Sherpas). Thanks for this share of your adventure – I hope there are still a few posts on it coming!

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    • Oh, cheat away, my friend! So excited to meet another WE school builder. Just had a quick look at your blog to see which trip you did but I’ll be back to have a proper read of your experiences. I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

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  4. When we were in Morocco, tea was the beverage of choice, loaded with sugar! It is a sign of hospitality, particularly if you are invited in a shop to the back room for tea as you barter for your wares.

    Admittedly, I looked a number of these up as I had no idea what these food were but here are my guesses:

    A. Rajma Tarkari
    B. Saag
    C. Momo
    D. Tato Dudh
    E. Suji Ko Haluwa
    F. Phini Roti
    G. Chayote
    H. Alu Paratha
    I. Anda Tarkari
    J. Dal Bhat

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Thanks for playing, Lynn!

      When we went to Morocco I vowed to go home and plant mint in my garden because I loved the tea. (Plus later in the same trip we went to Dubai and loved the mint lemonade so even more reason to grow mint.)
      I love experiencing the different ways people drink tea and coffee around the world. 🙂

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  6. Okay, I admit….I know none of these, but geez, just in one plate (even half-eaten) it’s obvious to see you really got the total experience….when you said you were going, I never thought that you’d be eating previously-unknown foods and depending on said foods for your total diet. Whew! What an experience you have had all the way round. Am curious…did you get hooked on any new foods and have plans to import them into your own kitchen?

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  7. Sorry, I just reread my comment and realize I didn’t phrase the question right. I meant to ask, did you get hooked on any specific new food….or are you just trying to replicate the whole experience of Nepalese meal?

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    • I loved the breads the most. And on the plate in the photo on the trekking post there’s a yak cheese puff that I dearly wish I could replicate. But I also wanted to replicate a whole meal for the boys when I got home. And I had plans to take dal bhat to work for lunch when I got back. All that got a bit waylaid….. 🙂
      What I don’t have photos of unfortunately is Italian night when we got spaghetti and pizza. 😀 (To this day I don’t know how he made pizza….)

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  9. All look yummy and I haven’t got a clue about Nepalese cookery, except that I did once teach in a Hampshire village that had a Nepalese restaurant and the food was very GOOD!
    3 B perhaps? Now I am hungry…

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    • I have never heard that equation before. It’s hilarious! And true. Many moons ago, on a driving trip around the UK, I would stay in B&Bs and eat and drink everything I was offered for breakfast so I wouldn’t have to eat again until dinner time (saved money). By the time I had juice, milk on my cereal and an entire pot of tea…. Half an hour down the road things would get a little desperate.
      All the food was amazing but the best meals were those eaten in the sunshine. 🙂

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    • Isn’t it the best? And so simple. I had plans to make a big pot of it and take it to work for lunch when I got back. Unfortunately, six broken ribs put a stop to that but it’s still a plan when I go back in February. 🙂 Thanks for commenting Faye. Hope your travels are going well.

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  13. I very rarely have photos of food for the same reason …. eat first, consider photo potential second :/

    After my extensive, exhaustive, and exhausting research (I’m ready for something considerably stronger than tea), these are my answers:
    1-D
    2-I
    3-B
    4-H
    5-E
    6-G
    7-J
    8-F
    9-A
    10-C

    All of this sounds significantly better than the leftovers I’m likely going to have for dinner tonight.

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Oh, I’m sorry about that. It must drive you mad. There were lots of veggie dishes on offer so on the trip there might have been more you could eat. We had one vegetarian in the group but as we only got offered a meat dish a couple of times, it wasn’t an issue.
      I ate a lot of those “leaves” because they were a good alternative to the fact there was very little red meat and I have low iron. Guess what it is? 😉

      Liked by 1 person

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    • No apology necessary. Quizzes are not for everyone. We do one in the local paper every night over dinner so I’m a bit partial to them myself but I realise it’s not everybody’s cup of best black tea.

      Putting the photos together for the post just made me want to jump on an aeroplane and fly right back there for some dal bhat.

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  21. Okay, well I was so successful at this game over at Sue’s blog (one right I think), I may find it hard to beat my previous record, but I’ll have a go.

    1-C
    2-H
    3-E
    4-I
    5-A
    6-G
    7-J
    8-B
    9-F
    10-D

    You will probably find it hard to believe, but I guessed some of these.

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  22. I am going to pass on the quiz due to time constraints. And also because – not to brag – I have a knack for getting quizzes right and down pat and really don’t want to come across as a smarty pass.

    With that said, I think C looks like very yummy dumplings. Also, judging from the plate of food you took with your phone, looks like they fed you well while you were on your expedition. So many dishes crammed into one plate – someone must have done a lot of cooking that day 😀

    Liked by 1 person

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  26. Hey, Heather! Am I by any chance in your spam folder? I’m sure I entered this quiz, but I can’t see my post anywhere. (Failing that, I may have pushed the wrong button or something.) It’d be a shame if I didn’t send my entry because I’m sure I’d have a tremendous chance of winning.

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  28. Love the way you have presented this Heather, but I’m copping out and relay the following as I’m lazy!
    A Beans
    B Spinach
    C dodgy
    D Tea
    E nuts, date and something ground
    F yummy looking flat bread
    G Chayote
    H another yummy Italian looking piade
    I Tomatoes and cheese
    J Stew and rice, the least favourite.

    I’m glad you’ve had some who have taken this seriously! ❤

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