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While working weekends in an Americanized Chinese food restaurant I realized while many ingredients are used, no dishes contain cheese.

This seems to be the case for every chinese dish I have ever seen in America, where as almost any other type of restaurants at least features some items with cheese on their menus.

Why is this?

John
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    I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Rangoon – C. K. Young Sep 25 '15 at 02:07
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    Because it would be gross... I love cheese... I think it's magic... but I don't see anything about Chinese food that would work with cheese. – Catija Sep 25 '15 at 03:09
  • @Catija I've often put parmesan (or parmigiano-reggiano) on my Chinese food leftovers and *I* enjoyed it at least. But most people that know that I've done this find it gross. – Kenny Evitt Sep 25 '15 at 15:29
  • Maybe it's a midwest thing, but I've gotten cheese on mussel appetizers at several Americanized Chinese restaurants. – Chuu Sep 25 '15 at 16:23
  • My local chinese buffet has (I assume fake) crab legs, celery, some other stuff (maybe shrimp?), and some white sauce - topped with cheese. I forget what they've called the dish, and their online menu is... well, not a menu. But it's super-delicious. I like it more than the salmon, or the straight up shrimp. –  Sep 27 '15 at 16:54

5 Answers5

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It's simple; Americanized Chinese food rarely contains cheese because Chinese food rarely contains cheese.

As many as 90% of Chinese people are, to some degree, lactose intolerant. Dairy is simply not a large part of Chinese food culture. Dairy is growing as a business in China. However, since dairy makes most Chinese sick, I imagine the dairy industry will be primarily an industry of exportation.

EDIT As I promised in comments, I did look for citations for that 90% figure. The figure is ubiquitous. It may in fact have more to do with societal evolution than anything innate in the genetics of the Chinese people, but the fact remains. Most Chinese people react poorly to dairy.

Neato Chart

Jolenealaska
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    Do you have a citation for the lactose intolerance figure? I see [this](http://milk.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000661) but it's not conclusive. Lots of cheese is (nearly) lactose free; e.g., cheese from certain animals or aged cheeses. I have seen 6 months or 18 months cited as the time after which the critters have consumed most of the lactose, and the cheese is essentially lactose free. – hoc_age Sep 25 '15 at 02:39
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    Yes, I will post citations, but how much lactose is in cheese really isn't the point. The point is that the ancient customs that are the cuisines of China evolved without much dairy. – Jolenealaska Sep 25 '15 at 02:44
  • I understood your thesis to be: Chinese food doesn't contain dairy, because it's not part of the Chinese food culture, because Chinese people are largely lactose intolerant. Did I miss your point? Due to the existence of lactose free cheeses, I don't think it necessarily follows that Chinese food has little dairy due to lactose intolerance. – hoc_age Sep 25 '15 at 02:58
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    No, you didn't miss my point, it's just that I don't consider "why" to be all that important. The fact is that Chinese and South-East Asian food cultures don't contain much dairy. I accept lactose intolerance as a probable contributing factor without feeling the need to carefully research. Certainly, more information is better than less, so I would welcome input. – Jolenealaska Sep 25 '15 at 03:04
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    http://milk.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000661 This study worked out the lactose intolerance numbers. Also: apparently, there are high rates for lactose intolerance because they did not drink milk, not the other way around -> Europeans most likely got lactose-tolerant because milk was added to the diet during a time when having this extra-option for nutrition increased the likelihood of survival enough to make a difference for survival and breeding! – Layna Sep 25 '15 at 06:17
  • Actually, the lactose intolerance of the Chinese people is probably the result of a culture of not consuming cow milk and milk products - not the other way around. – slebetman Sep 25 '15 at 07:03
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    @hoc_age Lactose-free cheeses are a recent thing. There's no particular reason that a non-cheese-eating culture would suddenly decide to start including it in a lot of dishes: that would take a long time, assuming it happened at all. There's no particular desire in Chinese cuisine for what is, essentially, a cheese-substitute because there's no particular desire for cheese. – David Richerby Sep 25 '15 at 10:23
  • We are selling a country load of dairy product to China, someone is eating it? – TFD Sep 25 '15 at 12:20
  • @DavidRicherby Hard cheeses are not particularly _high_ in lactose even without a specific (modern) effort to make them lactose-free. – Random832 Sep 25 '15 at 13:25
  • @TFD I imagine China must contain some people who are not Chinese and/or who are not lactose intolerant? – bye Sep 25 '15 at 13:50
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    My input regarding lactose intolerance. I am Chinese. I grew up drinking multiple glasses of whole milk and I loved it. Sophomore year of college, I started getting sick after drinking milk. Use that information how you wish. – Jay Sep 25 '15 at 14:32
  • Just an FYI, almost all Lactose-Intolerance is acquired through the normal adult practice of *not consuming dairy products*. Most adults in the world are lactose intolerant because, unlike adult Americans, they do not consume nearly as much dairy food (read: cheese and ice cream). – RBarryYoung Sep 25 '15 at 16:44
  • @TFD even if you consume dairy, as you age lactose intolerance has a good chance of developing. It's just that consuming dairy reduces that chance. – SuperBiasedMan Sep 26 '15 at 11:15
  • @Alex one small country supplying 7+ billion Kg of dairy products to China every year. That's ~5Kg per person per year! Who's eating it? – TFD Sep 26 '15 at 12:23
  • @TFD 5Kg per person is *nothing*! ESL teachers alone could account for that. See the chart I posted to the answer. – Jolenealaska Sep 27 '15 at 07:38
  • @Jolenealaska even of there were one million Finnish ESL teachers (and I doubt there is!), that would still leave ~4.7 Kg per person :-). It just doesn't add up? – TFD Sep 27 '15 at 08:38
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    @TFD There are 600,000 foreign nationals living in China, plus *some* Chinese do consume dairy. I never claimed that no Chinese consume dairy, just that it isn't large part of their food culture. – Jolenealaska Sep 27 '15 at 08:46
  • @Jolenealaska 7,000,000,000 Kg - (600,000 * 351 Kg) = 6,700,000,000 which is ~4.8 Kg per person! – TFD Sep 27 '15 at 08:59
  • @Jolenealaska Have you been there? They use butter in their French style pastries, they use cheese in all sorts of breakfast and lunch foods, and ice cream ... there are queues for good ice cream. Yes, cheese is not in any dinner dishes I have seen, but dairy is everywhere! Even the famous Mooncakes have milk and butter in them – TFD Sep 27 '15 at 09:00
  • @TFD No, I have not been there, but I lived in Korea for a year. The dairy consumption there is roughly equivalent. Yes, people eat and drink dairy there, like Americans eat goat. – Jolenealaska Sep 27 '15 at 09:55
  • @Jolenealaska 10 or 20 years ago the dairy consumption of China was VERY low, just like Korea. Just saying they have changed, and are now consuming large amounts, and if they are all lactose intolerant, they must be putting on a brave face? – TFD Sep 27 '15 at 10:28
  • @TFD Lactose intolerance is a scale, not an absolute. Yes, China is using more dairy, I mention that in the answer. The government is also pushing for more dairy production and consumption in China, but it's no where near "large". China is still near the bottom of all countries for per capita dairy consumption. I'm not able to find it, but I'd be curious to see how much supplemental lactase is sold in China. – Jolenealaska Sep 27 '15 at 21:35
  • It's apparently not a tiny industry: http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/lactase-enzyme.html – Jolenealaska Sep 27 '15 at 21:48
  • Always wondered why south indian cuisines tend to use yoghurt and ghee only, while the north uses plenty of paneer, butter and cream too... then I happened on statistics about lactose tolerance for these regions, and it became very clear suddenly :) – rackandboneman Nov 10 '15 at 11:20
  • Ironically, there are some non-dairy but very cheese-like products (sufu/furu/stinky tofu) used in some chinese food (water spinach with sufu is delicious :) - but it seems they have not made it into american-chinese much... – rackandboneman Nov 10 '15 at 11:23
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Jolenealaska is right, that a large majority of Far Eastern people are lactose intolerant.

I think the answer to the question about cheese is that historically the peoples of the Far East did not keep milk-yielding cattle herds, which is why so many of them are lactose-intolerant, and why we never see cheese in Far Eastern dishes.

If someone wants to have a go incorporating dairy in fusion Chinese-Western cooking I would suggest that they go to something like Xueo, a Tibetan yoghurt-like dish made from fermented yak milk. That might match traditional food a little better than cheese!

Rosa
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I think cheese doesn't appear in American style chinese food more because of the way that american style chinese food has evolved (or hasn't evolved) as a cuisine, rather than because milk and cheese aren't traditional chinese ingredients.

I am a Chinese american but also lived in Hong Kong and Taiwan and traveled in China and Singapore, so I'm familiar with americanized Chinese food as well as Chinese food in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. Food in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong has evolved and changed in really complicated ways as they modernized and got access to new ingredients and exposure to western cultures like Britain and other asian cultures like Japan.

People in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan definitely consume dairy products in spite of whatever lactose intolerance they might have. Milk and yogurt are commonly consumed in China today. Milk appears in certain traditional Chinese desserts (almond tofu jelly and steamed milk). Parmesan and even mozzarella cheese is used as a topping for 'baked rice' in Hong Kong, which are traditional casserole dishes that probably developed with some British influence. Fluffy baked cheese cake is a popular dessert in Hong Kong and Taiwan bakeries (probably result of Japanese bakery influence). Milk is very popular in beverages like milk tea, yin-yeung (mixture of coffee and tea), bubble tea, and coffee.

While food in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan has evolved to incorporate nontraditional ingredients such as milk and cheese gradually, it is curious that this hasn't happened with american style chinese food despite the availability of milk and cheese products.

prairiechicken
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"Americanized" Chinese is not an invented cuisine, but rather an adaptation by Chinese immigrants to the US to adjust for local palates. That subset of cuisine as a whole still stays largely true to traditional methods and ingredients. While you may see the incorporation of more localized produce, it would be very unlikely to see such a foreign ingredient as cheese introduced. Probably the closest you'll ever see is the cream cheese in Crab Rangoon.

Sean Hart
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Restaurants are businesses first and foremost. In areas where Hispanics live Chinese restaurants serve cheese and meat enchiladas, pizza, baked fish with cheese topping besides all traditional chinese foods. Maybe this is Mexicanized chinese food.

rob
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