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From: chai@utflis.UUCP (Henry Chai)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Cheese and Chinese food
Message-ID: <247@utflis.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Aug-85 00:04:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: utflis.247
Posted: Sat Aug 24 00:04:02 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 07:04:43 EDT
References: <804@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: chai@utflis.UUCP (Henry Chai)
Distribution: net
Organization: FLIS, University of Toronto
Lines: 24
Summary: 

In article <804@brl-tgr.ARPA> wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) writes:
>It has occurred to me that I have no recollection of ever seeing cheese
>used as an ingredient in any Chinese or other Oriental cookery recipes.

Will it surprise you if I tell you that diary products are not a
part of the traditional chinese cuisine?  Can you imagine a culture that
does not use milk, cheese, butter until they were brought over by
foreigners?  The only cheese I know of that has been traditionally consumed
is goat's milk cheese, which is a part of the Mongolian cuisine, and it
isn't really chinese -- they're just nomads ("barbarians") living at the 
fringes of Cathy.
>
>Or is this not done because of the prevalence of "lactose intolerance"
>amongst Orientals? 

I myself is not intolerant of milk, but it has not been a part of my 
usual diet until I came to Canada.  Even now I don't drink it everyday,
and I can't have more than a glass in one sitting.  To many of us,
diary products slow down the digestion process.

-- 
Henry Chai 
Faculty of Library and Information Science, U of Toronto
{watmath,ihnp4,allegra}!utzoo!utflis!chai