Spiritual leader in exile arrives this week to receive honorary degree at USF
By William Brand
OAKLAND, August 31 – They look like plump Chinese potstickers — but don’t call them “Chinese” — ever.
The 5,000 or so, fluffy, steamed pastries — stuffed with savory meat, onions and spices — made late Saturday in Oakland are momos — a Tibetan specialty.
They’re destined for sale at a fund-raiser at a Tibetan cultural fair Thursday and Friday, when the Dalai Lama — Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile — arrives to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco.
“Most of the Tibetans here today weren’t born in Tibet,” said momo maven Tashi Chodron, vice president of Bay Area Friends of Tibet. They were born in exile in India, the children of parents among 80,000 Tibetans who fled their lofty Himalayan kingdom one step ahead of the invading Chinese Communist army.
Today, there are more than 120,000 Tibetans in exile — more than 1,000 in the Bay Area. The Dalai Lama, who took the Tibetan throne at age 6, as the 14th reincarnation of a “bodhisattva,” an enlightened Buddhist, received political asylum in India.
The Dalai Lama, who considers himself just a human being who chooses to be a Buddhist monk, is revered by Tibetans and the many non-Tibetans who have converted to Tibet’s Buddhism.
Ergo, the momos.
More than a dozen volunteers, Tibetans and non-Tibetans convened Saturday afternoon in the First Congregational Church kitchen to make the treasured delicacies.
Tashi Chodron, the daughter of a widely known Tibetan chef in the south of India, said she’s become a momo maven almost by accident. When Bill Graham Presents was holding a Tibetan benefit at Shoreline in Mountain View a few years ago, friends pressed her into service.
Now, when momos are needed on a vast scale, Chodron and friends get the call.
Chodron and fellow volunteers Tsering Vassallo and Tsering Dolma prefer to think of momos in English as dumplings. “We don’t fry them, we steam them and they’re filled with good things — much more filling than potstickers, Chodron said.
At Cafe Tibet on University Avenue in Berkeley, chef-proprietor Samten Chinkarlaprang said that Tibetan momos are special. “We don’t eat them every day.
“They take a long time to make, so they’re served at special parties and weddings. Everything is very natural and we use just the best ingredients,” she said.
Unlike potstickers, several momos are served with vegetables as a main dish. And they are that, she said. In Tibet they’re often made with yak meat, which has a lighter, very different taste than beef,” she said.
But change has come, even to momos. Chinkarlaprang worked for years for chef Jeremiah Tower at Stars, his San Francisco restaurant. Today, she makes several vegetarian momos, including one steamed with spinach, feta and mozzarella cheese, garlic and onions.
But despite the inevitable blend of foreign things with Tibetan culture, every Tibetan still wants to go home. Chinkarlaprang left when she was 3 months old.
Chodron was born in India. But she said she’d go home in a heartbeat, if the Chinese departed. “I’ve never been there, but it’s part of me,” she said.
The Tibetan Cultural Fair will be this Thursday and Friday on the USF campus between Fulton and Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco. There will be art, music — and food, of course — with lots of momos.
The Dalai Lama will be on campus on Friday. He will receive his doctorate after a full academic procession. He will make a public speech later, which will be broadcast on the campus radio station, KUSF-FM. Its programming is streamed over the Internet at http://kusf.org
Contact William Brand at bbrand@angnewspapers.com
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