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Resource Index | Left Brain | Right Brain | Courses | Site Directory The Dish on Tormas To visit Franca's website, click here. What are they? Tormas are ritual cakes used for deity practice or as food offerings on a shrine. They are traditionally made of tsampa (flour made from roasted barley, the main staple of the Tibetan diet) and decorated with coloured butter. However other materials are also acceptable: ordinary flour or oatmeal are often used. They can also be made as semi-permanent sculpture/shrine decorations. For long-lasting decorative tormas one can use plaster of Paris, fimo, or modelling clay. Such tormas can be incredibly elaborate, with carefully painted decorations. There are many traditional shapes, depending on the deity being honoured by the torma. The "no-frills" torma is a simple, rather elongated three-sided pyramid. How to Make Tormas Ingredients:
In a large bowl, add water to the flour until it is a good consistency for modelling: malleable but firm enough to stand up. If you are using tsampa or oatmeal, a bit of oil or melted butter will prevent the torma from drying and cracking. With wheat flour, don't use any oil at all. You may also choose to incorporate additional substances. One tradition calls for "three whites" (e.g. milk, curd, butter) and "three sweets" (e.g. sugar, honey and molasses). But this is not strictly necessary. If you are using ordinary flour, the dough will look stringy and dry and won't hold together. In this case rest the dough for 15 minutes before trying to work it. The flour granules will swell and absorb the moisture, making it much more malleable. With tsampa or oatmeal this is not necessary. Shape and decorate the torma. You can use butter to make "wheels", flat disks of butter with a coloured dot in the middle. Best to do this in winter in a cold house: if the weather's warm but you're determined, a bowl of ice water may be needed to keep your fingers cold. You can put your finished torma in the offering bowl representing "food" on your shrine (one of the traditional 8 offerings), You can also put it on its own dish, either on the same level as the offerings or on a low table in front of the shrine. When you remove the torma (they usually last a few days, depending on what you've used to make them) break it up and, remembering with compassion the hungry beings of the world, place them as an offering at the base of a tree or bush. You may also place pieces in the tree branches. Franca Leeson - Toronto, June 2002 Resource Index | Left Brain | Right Brain | Courses | Site Directory
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