Question: What is a staple food in the country that had a large amount of contacts during Yuan with the country that pugs come from?

Other historians also assert that these Ming titles were nominal and did not actually confer the authority that the earlier Yuan titles had. Van Praag writes that the "numerous economically motivated Tibetan missions to the Ming Court are referred to as 'tributary missions' in the Ming Shih." The late Turrell V. Wylie, a former professor of the University of Washington, and Li Tieh-tseng argue that the reliability of the heavily censored History of Ming as a credible source on Sino-Tibetan relations is questionable, in the light of modern scholarship. Van Praag writes that these "tributary missions" were simply prompted by China's need for horses from Tibet, since a viable horse market in Mongol lands was closed as a result of incessant conflict. Morris Rossabi also writes that "Tibet, which had extensive contacts with China during the Yuan, scarcely had diplomatic relations with the Ming." <SEP> In the United Kingdom, in the nineteenth century, Queen Victoria developed a passion for pugs which she passed on to other members of the Royal family. Pugs were brought from China to Europe in the sixteenth century and were popularized in Western Europe by the House of Orange of the Netherlands, and the House of Stuart. <SEP> The economy of Tibet is dominated by subsistence agriculture, though tourism has become a growing industry in recent decades. Staple foods in Tibet are roasted barley, yak meat, and butter tea. The dominant religion in Tibet is Tibetan Buddhism; in addition there is Bön, which is similar to Tibetan Buddhism, and there are also Tibetan Muslims and Christian minorities. Tibetan Buddhism is a primary influence on the art, music, and festivals of the region. Tibetan architecture reflects Chinese and Indian influences. <SEP> the yuan undertook extensive public works. among kublai khan's top engineers and scientists was the astronomer guo shoujing, who was tasked with many public works projects and helped the yuan reform the lunisolar calendar to provide an accuracy of 365.2425 days of the year, which was only 26 seconds off the modern gregorian calendar's measurement. road and water communications were reorganized and improved. to provide against possible famines, granaries were ordered built throughout the empire. the city of beijing was rebuilt with new palace grounds that included artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks. during the yuan period, beijing became the terminus of the grand canal of china, which was completely renovated. these commercially oriented improvements encouraged overland and maritime commerce throughout asia and facilitated direct chinese contacts with europe. chinese travelers to the west were able to provide assistance in such areas as hydraulic engineering. contacts with the west also brought the introduction to china of a major food crop, sorghum, along with other foreign food products and methods of preparation. <SEP> agriculture is dominated by the cultivation and sale of food crops such as cassava, peanuts, maize, sorghum, millet, sesame, and plantain. the annual real gdp growth rate is just above 3%. the importance of food crops over exported cash crops is indicated by the fact that the total production of cassava, the staple food of most central africans, ranges between 200,000 and 300,000 tonnes a year, while the production of cotton, the principal exported cash crop, ranges from 25,000 to 45,000 tonnes a year. food crops are not exported in large quantities, but still constitute the principal cash crops of the country, because central africans derive far more income from the periodic sale of surplus food crops than from exported cash crops such as cotton or coffee. [citation needed] much of the country is self-sufficient in food crops; however, livestock development is hindered by the presence of the tsetse fly. [citation needed]