Bhutan
Ema is chilli and datshi is cheese, and in the national dish the chilli is the main ingredient. If one of you eats no spice at all, that is settled before you land, not argued over at the table.
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Ema datshi
Cooks use green, red or white chillies, the white ones washed in hot water and dried in the sun, then melt them into datshi made at home from cow or yak milk. It comes with nutty red rice and a cup of suja, butter tea with salt.
Photo: Rama Krushna Behera
The farmhouse
Three storeys of rammed earth, animals once kept on the ground floor, the family's altar room, the choesum, at the top. We agree the chilli with the cook the day before, so in Paro or Punakha it arrives at the heat you asked for.
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Milder plates
Kewa datshi is potatoes in soft cheese; shamu datshi is made with mushrooms. With red rice, both suit mild palates, and we ask each kitchen to make one Bhutanese dish gently so the whole family can taste the country.
Photo: Pema Gyamtsho / Unsplash
Thimphu's market
At the market on the Wang Chhu bank: chillies by the sack, red rice, dried yak meat and chugo, the rock-hard cheese people chew like toffee. Ara, the local rice wine, sells in unmarked bottles.
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No spice at all
We brief every lodge in writing before you land: vegetarian, Jain, no chilli, no garlic, allergies. At lunch stops your guide asks the kitchen in Dzongkha to cook yours without chilli, and checks what has come to the table before you do.
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Manners
Your host will offer suja or ara more than once. Bhutanese guests say meshu meshu, covering the mouth, before accepting on the second or third offer; a guest may simply take the cup in both hands. Leave a little in the bowl when you have had enough.
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Your table
A farmhouse lunch is part of several of our Bhutan journeys. Tell us who eats what, from fierce to none at all, and every kitchen gets it in writing before your first meal.
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