How come Chinese food doesn't use dairy?

Answer 1

it would taste funny

Answer 2

Cultural reason. Famine, floods, wars, poverty played important parts in influencing socio-economic life of the Chinese throughout history of ancient China.

Meat was a luxury only reserved for the Imperial Court. And it would have costs a fortune to feed cattle and livestock when the local populace are facing deprivation and destitute times. Soya bean - a high protein food is the poor man's meat. Also large parts of the region's weather are not conducive in keeping dairy-based produce.

It has got nothing to do with lactose tolerance.

Answer 3

First Chinese food u eat in USA is nothing like what u would eat in China. Their culture primarily draws on the vegetables,rice and soy products in their region. Not many own a cow. That is also why u see limited amounts of beef in their diets. It's too expensive.

Answer 4

"Because of lactose intolerance, Chinese do not consume large amounts of dairy products. Instead, Chinese substitute these with soymilk and tofu, which also contain large amounts of protein and calcium."

Taken from: http://ethnomed.org/cultures/chinese/chinese_food.html

Answer 5

Many Asians are lactose intolerant so they never got into the cultural habit of eating milk after infancy, if they ever did.

Answer 6

i heard that alot of Asian people are lactose tolerant "spelt wrong i think" this means they try to keep dairy ingredients to a minimum, as it can cause bad side effects.

Answer 7

Chinese didn't have dairy cow in the past and mostly the Chinese farmers kept buffaloes for farming and also as one of their properties. There is a place, Shun Tak, in Guang Dong (the Pearl River Delta) where they use buffalo milk as ingredients for desserts, eg., egg white pudding (steamed egg white with buffalo milk) and someone up there has mentioned about stir fried buffalo milk is also a famous dish from Shun Tak (they mix egg white, corn starch, salt and buffalo milk together then stir fry the mixture quickly in wok). There is another dish call "deep fried milk" - which is similar as deep fried ice-cream but they deep fried buffalo milk pudding with batter.

Here is a photo of Shun Tak stir fried milk.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dstir%2Bfried%2Bmilk%2Bphoto%26toggle%3D1%26ei%3DUTF-8%26qp_p%3Dstir%2Bfried%2Bmilk%26imgsz%3Dall%26fr%3Dyfp-t-501%26b%3D1&w=150&h=122&imgurl=www.chinavoc.com%2Fcuisine%2Ffamily%2Fbeef%2Fimages%2Fb12.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chinavoc.com%2Fcuisine%2Ffamily%2Fbeef%2Fbe_stirMilk.asp&size=4.7kB&name=b12.jpg&p=stir+fried+milk+photo&type=jpeg&no=6&tt=71&oid=e1fb929ed8f5da44&ei=UTF-8
Here is the photo and recipe of deep fried milk
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Ddeep%2Bfried%2Bmilk%2Bphoto%26ei%3DUTF-8%26qp_p%3Ddeep%2Bfried%2Bmilk%26imgsz%3Dall%26fr%3Dyfp-t-501%26b%3D1&w=330&h=160&imgurl=www.towngas.com%2Ffiles%2Fdessert17.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.towngas.com%2Ftgweb%2Ftxteng%2Fcooking%2Frecipes_content.asp%3Fcon%3D74&size=20.3kB&name=dessert17.jpg&p=deep+fried+milk+photo&type=jpeg&no=1&tt=72&oid=a810453dc9da0212&ei=UTF-8

People in Shun Tak also make "preserved milk sheets" which are thin slices of "cheese" and is similar to cottage cheese or mozzarella cheese for serving rice congee.

Answer 8

There is a traditional dish called "stir-fry milk".
Also, milk is used in *white* gravy. For *red* gravy, ketchup is used.

Answer 9

Did you ever try to get a cow into a spring roll

Answer 10

lactose intolerance and lack of refrigeration