In most European countries, the national fare will include many recipes which include some type of cheese. I have never encountered cheese as an ingredient in Asian food. Why is this? Poor environment for the bacterial process involved in making cheese? Not enough cows? The Asian folk just don’t like the taste? Also, I’ve never had authentic African food-- any cheese there?
I think, in china at least, dairy products make up a much smaller proportion of their diet than, say, Western Europe or North America.
Do you know why by chance? Refrigeration problem, maybe?
Thanks for the response!
“Guy? Wait,” said the voice. “This isn’t me.”
This may be a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg answer, but most Asians don’t digest milk very well.
It’s not a refrigeration question–cheese evolved as a way to keep milk products without refrigeration.
Asian cuisines use lots of fermented things (soy, fish, etc.) but not milk.
The only African cuisine I know much about is Ethiopian and yes, they do use a type of fresh cheese (similar to ricotta) and also spiced butter.
Interesting point about Ethiopian food. Several Northern Indian vegetarian dishes also include a simple white cheese.
As for East Asians, dairy products don’t seem to figure in their food choices past childhood. Every Asian-American I know turns up his or her nose at fermented curd.
Only Europeans like dairy so much that they’ve created such a stunning variety of cheeses.
Most East Asian cultures think of cheese as spoiled milk, the same kind of reaction most Westerners have to “thousand-year-old” eggs.
And as cher3 says above, lactose intolerance is a lot more common in Asia (and parts of Africa) than it is among European-descended people. I don’t know about South Americans; many native North Americans are pretty likely to also have trouble with milk.
Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”
The Indian cultures have several types of soft cheeses that I am aware of, plus they do eat a lot of yogurt (to calm down the curry :)).
A friend’s mother was born in the Phillipines, and she said that she never drank milk much before coming to the US because her native island really didn’t have room for cows…
It’s a genetic thing–most Asians can’t digest milk.
http://onhealth.com/ch1/resource/conditions/item,391.asp
If you look at it from a historical perspective, it’s because keeping a cow is fairly expensive in terms of resources–she needs to be fed hay during the winter, and she only gives milk part of the year. (You also have to keep a bull around in order to get the cow pregnant so she can give milk. That’s all he does, is eat his head off and mount a cow once a year.) The Chinese have always been a crowded nation, where all available resources go towards people, not cattle. Thus, there would have been no advantage in being able to digest milk, and so it wouldn’t be selected for in the population.
In northern and western Europe, however, it’s a lot less crowded, and easier to allocate resources to keep a cow alive during the winter, and to allow her to hang around even though she’s not giving milk. So, there would have been an advantage in being able to digest milk and cheese, to make use of this protein resource.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
One of the exceptions being Mongolia and Mongol Chinese.
"Mongolian people like milk products in summer and autumn…
From milk many kinds of dishes are prepared. First of all, the milk is boiled and is stirred many times, and after cooling, the “urum” (the thick skin on boiled milk) is taken off. Further, the boiled milk is fermented and used to make yogurt, aarts (sour cottage cheese), and aaruul (a dry curd sweet). A small quantity of yogurt is poured into hot milk and fermented, and from this byaslag (cheese), eezgii (dry curds) and eedem (similar to cheese) are made. Mongols very much prefer urum and aaruul among milk products."
Nicely stated, Funneefarmer–but I would also point out that a significant amount of the milk that Mongolians drink is mare’s milk! Not sure how it goes for cheese-making, but I hear that it is mildly intoxicating when fermented, and a favored drink in Mongolia.
(BTW, I’d quote you, Funneefarmer, but I’m still new at this and don’t know how. Thanks for your info!)
I’m Filipino(we’re probably the least Asians out of all Asians) and we do eat cheese a lot. I’m not sure if the whole Filipino culture eats cheese, although I’m pretty sure a lot of Filipino dishes have cheese as an ingridients(some type of lumpias have cheese in them).