All the Cheese in China
Women selling cheese copyright 2016 Josh Wand
"Dali Rushan" by rduta is licensed under CC BY 2.0
In the tourist town of Dali, in China’s far southwestern corner, a young woman is grilling cheese over a small bucket filled with coals. The cheese, called ru shan (or “milk fans”) is made from cow’s milk that is stretched like mozzarella, wound around sticks, and dried in the sun. The young woman toasts these sheets of cheese until they browned and blistered, then she slathers them with rose petal jam and wraps them up for tourists to enjoy. 170 miles to the southeast, in the city of Kunming, diners at the upscale restaurant 1910 La Gare du Sud are enjoying small squares of a different griddled cheese, ru bing (“milk cake”), dipped in a small dish of sugar. To the north, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, laborers in Deqin, a small city near the holy mountain of Kawakarpo, enjoy steamed buns filled with a rich mix of butter and hot, melting cheese.
China is not known for its cheeses. In fact, ask most people in the country, and they’ll tell you that Chinese people traditionally don’t eat cheese at all. For most of the country, dairy products are exotic Western ingredients that have only recently become popular in coffee shops that serve elaborate cappuccinos and American-style dishes like pizza and pasta. There is some yogurt; a thin, drinkable yogurt is a popular snack in places like Beijing. But when I first visited the China just a couple of decades ago, most of the people I met had never tried cheese.
Historically, however, there was cheese in China—even in the areas considered the cradle of the country’s civilization. Dairy was a regular part of China’s medieval diet, and cheese continued to be available across the country for centuries: A number of Chinese books from the 1500s include recipes for making cheese by adding acid to milk (rather than rennet) as well as cheese-centered recipes that range from stews to steamed dishes to pastries. For instance, the 16th century book Mr. Song’s Book of Nourishing Life—which chronicles the foods made in eastern Jiangsu Province (present-day Shanghai)—includes a recipe for dumplings stuffed with cheese, poppy seeds, scallions, and spices.
Copyright 2016 Josh Wand
Today, these cheeses are a distant memory, and people in the country’s south and east do not eat cheese as part of their regular diet. But the idea that there is no cheese in contemporary China still ignores a large swath of the country—the areas to the north and west historically populated by China’s many minority groups. Many of China’s ethnic minorities have made cheese for centuries. Here are the regions where cheese is an integral part of the diet. There’s evidence that some form of cheese has been in the Han culture since at least the 6th century.
Yunnan Province
This ethnically diverse province sits at China’s border with Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam and also borders the Tibetan Autonomous Region. The dozens of ethnic groups that live in the area had very little contact with other parts of China before the 1950s and have largely maintained their distinct foodways.
Yunnan is home to a few different types of cheeses. The best-known are the two mentioned above: ru shan and ru bing. Ru shan is found in the area around Lake Erhai, a fertile region surrounded by tall mountains populated primarily by the Bai people. This cheese can be served grilled (as described above), or it can be deep fried until it becomes puffy and crunchy, like Thai shrimp chips.
Ru bing, which is traditionally made from goat milk, is found in the center of Yunnan and is often made by the area’s Yi minority. Most ru bing is fairly firm, with a texture that is reminiscent of Indian paneer, but some can be crumbly. The firm version doesn’t melt very easily, so it can be heated on a wok until the outside is golden brown. It is often served layered with slices of local ham and then steamed and dressed with a thin sauce made from cornstarch and water. It can also be stir-fried with vegetables; ru bing and fava beans are a popular pairing.
"File:Yunnan woman with yak cheese.jpg" by DanielleFayis licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Farther north, where Yunnan meets the Tibetan Autonomous Region, you’ll find thi, (or nai zha in Mandarin), a yak milk cheese made by local cooks. This cheese has a yellow, buttery-looking rind but is often hung above a home’s stove, where it absorbs the cooking smoke and turns brown as it ages. The result is a very firm cheese with a smooth texture that is both sour and also slightly sweet. The cheese is usually eaten on its own, often with tea and tsampa (the roasted barley flour that is one of Tibetans’ main food sources). Some cooks also use it as a filling for momos or steamed buns, and when local families have guests to dinner, they will often melt thi with butter and serve the mixture with a local flat bread called baba.
Tibetan Autonomous Region
Cheese is an important food source in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), especially in the central areas around Lhasa. Nomadic families traditionally make cheeses (chura) during the summer by adding an acid to milk from their cows or dri (female yaks) and then dry most of the cheese so that it keeps all year. These cheeses take a few forms and can be eaten in a variety of ways: One of the most common cheeses is chugum, small pieces of cheese that are dried until they are extremely firm and hard and then strung on a thread, like beads. These and other, similar snacking cheeses come in a wide variety of shapes and are easy to transport. Travelers can suck on them over time or put them in cups of hot tea to soften them a bit. A dri cheese called chuship, which has a crumbly texture (as if pre-grated), is often mixed with tsampa and tea and eaten like porridge or turned into pa, a dough made with tsampa, butter, tea, and sometimes sugar. It can also be added to noodle soups.
Copyright 2016 Josh Wand
Other dishes made with cheese include bhatsa marku, a sweet mix of hand-made noodles, cheese, and butter reminiscent of an American macaroni and cheese. Around Losar (the Tibetan New Year), and other holidays (or for weddings), Tibetan cooks also use cheese to make thue, a mix of grated cheese, brown sugar, and butter that is formed into a thick brick and then mixed with tsampa and tea or eaten plain, in slices.
Xinjiang
Xinjiang Province is a vast area China’s northwest, north of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, that borders India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Khazakstan, Mongolia, and a tiny bit of Russia. It is also home to some of the oldest cheese in the world, a 4,000-year-old piece of cheese made from cow’s milk mixed with some goat and sheep milk that was found in a tomb in the Taklamakan Desert.
"ILO photo e7434" by ILO PHOTOS NEWS is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Today, the people of the region—primarily the Muslim Uyghur minory—still make a very similar cheese, known askurut or sometimes kurt. This semi-hard cheese is made by fermenting raw cow’s milk (without a starter), then heating it to remove the curds. (Some cheese makers mix the sour milk with sweet milk, and some add rennet.) The curds are then shaped and dried, and can be eaten with noodles or bread. Similar cheese are made with goat milk and even horse milk, which is popular for its flavor and nutritiousness.
Inner Mongolia
Traditional Mongolian cheeses are very similar to traditional Tibetan cheeses. Like Tibetans, Mongolians were historically a nomadic people, and milk from their yaks (as well as milk from small herds of sheep, goats, and horses) was a primary food source. Like Tibetan cheeses, Mongolian cheeses are rarely eaten fresh; most are dried in the sun into hard pieces that can be transported easily and will last through the winter.
"Mongolian Cheese" by Paulo Fassina is licensed underCC BY-SA 2.0
In the past, each family or community in Inner Mongolia (the northeastern Chinese Province populated by the Mongolian people) would make cheeses from their own milk as part of their every day food preparation. Today, however, China has pushed to modernize much of region, encouraging people to abandon nomadic life and move to cities. As a result, an increasing portion of the cheese in Inner Mongolia is made in small factories. Some of these cheeses are based on the area’s traditional foods, but producers also use a base called nai doufu (“milk tofu”)—curds cooked in a wok until they form a pliant, sticky mass—to make a variety of shapes and snacks, including some flavored with dried fruits, such as jujubes.
Note: Special thanks to Zhang Mei of Wild China and Lobsang Wangdu and Yolanda O’Bannon of YoWangdu Experience Tibet for their insights into the cheeses of China and Tibet.
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