It’s difficult to grow vegetables in the Himalayas. It’s even difficult to grow feed for cattle. And it’s also difficult to carry enough food for long treks through the mountains. But people adapt, and in Nepal, they found ways. A yak-cow hybrid called the chauri can live off the tougher grass available at higher elevations. The milk of the chauri is made into a cheese called chhurpi, which is so dry that it can be eaten for far longer than any other cheese. It is said that chhurpi can last for up to twenty years!
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Chauri milk is boiled, fermented, smoked, and dried for preservation. The chhirpi that results is lightweight and full of protein, with very little fat. That makes it easy to transport and easy to store, but not all that easy to eat. An experienced chhurpi chewer can do it in a few minutes, while an intrepid reporter never got it soft enough to ingest. BBC Travel visited a Nepalese family who produces chhurpi from their own livestock and from those of their neighbors to see how they make it and use it. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Arijit Dasgupta)
Source: neatorama