#20 - Bhutan

I have to admit that this week was our biggest surprise. In a good way.

In doing my research I learned that Ema Datshi is the national dish of Bhutan. Translated “ema” means chill and “Datshi” means cheese. So the national dish is Chili & Cheese. Together. In a soup. I was not looking forward to this. It turns out that even though they don’t grow in Bhutan, hot peppers are a major component of the Bhutanese diet. They are eaten with almost every meal. The hot peppers are so important that in 2016 there was a near disaster. The very environmentally conscious government of Bhutan decided that the peppers imported from India contained too many pesticides and therefore banned them. This lead to a shortage and subsequent quadrupling of the prices. The outcry was so significant that eventually the government capitulated, allowing Indian chilies to be imported until such time that Bhutanese farmers are able to grow enough to fulfill the national demand.

But back to our “spicy cheese soup”.....The recipe called for 10oz of mixed hot peppers. We used Anaheim and Thai red chili peppers. The Yak cheese that the recipe called for was beyond my sourcing capabilities, so we ended up substituting a combination of goat feta, Gorgonzola and mild cheddar (believe it or not, I was able to find a website that gave me the appropriate substitute for Yak cheese. Gotta love the internet)

So what was the surprise???? That this was actually really really good! We ate it with Bhutanese red rice and will likely actually make it again.

Next stop is Bolivia. And no, we will not be preparing or eating Guinea Pig.