Lala: The Milk Fish of the Northern Tibetan Pastures
The Tibetan snack Lala was the subject of a prize-winning dance at the "First Tibet Autonomous Region Folk Dance Competition" two years ago, where the Damxung County Art Troupe of Lhasa City took first place with a score of 9.88 for "Lala · Road to Prosperity". That dance used a highly artistic style to show the everyday lives of herders making Lala. At this year's Spring Festival Gala, the host introduced Lala to Hou Minghao, a new-generation actor, as a Tibetan delicacy.
Known as 'Lala' and transliterated from the Tibetan 'ལ་ལ།', this fish made of milk is a dairy product from Tibet's pastoral areas, such as Nagqu and Chamdo, and is one of the Tibetan people's favorite daily snacks. Since 'Lala' is not standard written language, its meaning is not clearly defined. Currently, the most authoritative (and seemingly the only) academic explanation is found in Mr. Karma Gongja's book 'Northern Tibetan Dairy Culture', which states: 'Although the word sounds like Chinese...
Through my own study of the local dialect, I observed that 'La' (ལ།) acts as a verb denoting an action. For instance, 'Chuwa shig la rog (ཕྱུ་བ་ཞིག་ལ་རོགས།)' is how one would ask for help making a piece of cheese. Meanwhile, discussions with local elders indicate that the word is not borrowed from Chinese and has been in use since ancient times. In their view, it may be akin to 'Kharlalagyishig (ཁར་ལ་ལ་གྱིས་ཤིག)' in the spoken language of Nagqu herders, which refers to a hard food that can be held in the mouth.
According to clues provided by Teacher Kaying from Nagqu, the term "E Nie" (འོ་ཉ།) appears to have emerged very early as well. The "Nagqu Regional Chronicles" records another name for Lala—"milk fish," which is rendered in Tibetan as "E Nie" (འོ་ཉ།). This term is widely used across various counties and pastoral areas of Nagqu, whereas "Lala" tends to be more common within Nagqu city itself. Separately, people also refer to the product as 'Ola' (འོ་ལ།, dairy-based), and whether this name derives from its production method is a question best left to experts.
Clearly, the name "E Nie" comes from the strip-like, ribbon-shaped appearance of Lala. Making Lala is not an overly complex process; although regional variations exist, the essential steps are: heating yak milk, adding a little sour water, shaking continuously to make it coagulate, kneading and stretching into strips, and drying. Still, the entire process is not simple in the least.
The "Lala Cheese Making Technique" from Nyainrong County, Nagqu, was prominently featured in the 2013 "Fourth Batch of Autonomous Region-Level Intangible Cultural Heritage List." The texture of Lala is influenced by various production details, including the regulation of heat during heating, the quantity of sour water added, and the stretching force applied. An excessive amount of sour water leads to a sour flavor, producing Lala of the poorest quality. Conversely, insufficient sour water makes it challenging for the Lala to set and stretch properly.
Fresh yak milk is repeatedly churned by Tibetans to extract its milk fat, known in Tibetan as "tsema" (butter). As a result, even though every Lala comes from yak milk, the quality varies, with the finest Lala being made from milk that has not had its butter removed. The county earned this recognition for two reasons: its unique Lala-making method, and the fact that its Lala is produced from yak milk with no butter extraction.
Tibet's Lala and Dali's Rushan: In the Dali and Eryuan areas of Yunnan Province, the Bai people are just as enthusiastic about a dairy product that is almost identical to Tibet's Lala, and they give it the very pleasant name Rushan (also known as Ruxian). Milk that has been skimmed of its fat obviously loses most of its essential nutrients, whereas Lala, prepared from yak milk that has not been churned for butter, is described as the "essence of the essence.
According to the Qing Dynasty "Dengchuan Zhou Zhi," Rushan is made by heating a cup of cow's milk in a pot, adding acidic juice, and gently stirring it with two round chopsticks until it gradually forms a pancake. Apart from the stretching technique and the final shape, Rushan's production process is highly similar to that of Lala. Additionally, this naming method also resembles Nagqu's "milk fish.
The sheets are hand-spread after being picked up, rolled back and forth with two chopsticks, placed on a bamboo frame to take shape, then dried. Their appearance is a fine white, similar to thin paper. In brief, this procedure is: heating milk — adding acidic water — stirring and shaking — stretching — drying. But compared to Lala, Rushan boasts a more extensive and well-defined record in historical texts.
In the Bai people's Three-Course Tea, known for being "bitter first, sweet second, and lingering third," Rushan is a key ingredient in the second course of sweet tea. The same basic ways of eating Lala—raw or soaked in tea—also apply to Rushan. Five centuries ago, Ming Dynasty literatus Yang Shen wrote of this in his "Yunnan Moon Festival": "Crisp flowers and Rushan float in the cup, green.
In contrast to Tibet's Lala, Rushan offers a third way to be consumed beyond eating it raw or steeping it in tea: it can be grilled. Meanwhile, Lala can serve as an ingredient for making pizza. More intriguingly, a comparison between Lala and Italy's Pasta Filata cheese was drawn in the paper "Research on the Processing Technology of Tibetan Yak Milk Lala," where the two were examined side by side.
Based on the coagulation process, stretched cheeses are divided into enzyme-coagulated and acid-coagulated varieties. Being a typical acid-coagulated stretched cheese from Northern Tibet, Lala, according to the study, could even become the preferred green, pollution-free, high-end cheese product for Western foods such as pizza. Additionally, in contrast to foreign enzyme-coagulated stretched cheeses, it has a very short processing time, simple technology, low technical requirements, low cost, and high yield.
Tibet's Lala production remains at a traditional workshop stage, with evident shortcomings such as "low production efficiency, small output, and failure to achieve scale or industrial production." Nevertheless, the author contends that Lala has market potential because cheese demand is growing in China's dairy market. Moreover, up to now, Lala has unquestionably become an economic resource for many Tibetan herder families, especially in Northern Tibet.
The traditional production and processing techniques of Lala, therefore, are also in urgent need of preservation. Alternatively: Lala's traditional production and processing techniques, consequently, appear to be urgently required as well.