AHC: Spread yogurt earlier

[pa_dutch]

Yogurt has been consumed since the time of the ancient Egyptians and Israelites. The "milk" that flowed in the Promised Land alongside honey was likely a fermented milk drink. It's been a staple in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe Even the classical Greeks had their own form of yogurt, but despite this, yogurt didn't spread into Western Europe nor did it become popular in East Asia until fairly modern times. How early can yogurt become popular in the far West and the far East, and what effects will it have on history?

 

[Flocculencio]

Yogurt has been consumed since the time of the ancient Egyptians and Israelites. The "milk" that flowed in the Promised Land alongside honey was likely a fermented milk drink. It's been a staple in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe Even the classical Greeks had their own form of yogurt, but despite this, yogurt didn't spread into Western Europe nor did it become popular in East Asia until fairly modern times. How early can yogurt become popular in the far West and the far East, and what effects will it have on history?

I'm pretty sure it would have had some presence in Western Europe (in terms of curds and whey).

For E Asia you need to have the idea of using dairy products to take root in the first place. I'm not sure why it didn't- East Asians do have more prevalent levels of that lactose intolerance gene but so does everyone else who isn't Western European and it hasn't stopped Arabs, Persians, Indians etc having dairy based diets.

 

[carlton_bach]

Europe had its own fermented dairy culture, with things like skyr or herbstmilch alongside rennet cheese. Yoghurt ultimately came from the Balkans to become a health food fad, taking over from the traditional forms.

 

[pa_dutch]

I'm pretty sure it would have had some presence in Western Europe (in terms of curds and whey).

For E Asia you need to have the idea of using dairy products to take root in the first place. I'm not sure why it didn't- East Asians do have more prevalent levels of that lactose intolerance gene but so does everyone else who isn't Western European and it hasn't stopped Arabs, Persians, Indians etc having dairy based diets.

It's especially strange considering how popular dairy products are today in East Asia - Young people in China drink milk and yogurt religiously, and lately there's even a "make your own yogurt" fad going around that popped up almost overnight. I believe Hokkaido is also now famous for its dairy - At least, I've seen a lot of Japanese prepackaged breads made with "real Hokkaido milk".

Yet, dairy in China is still seen as either a minority food or a foreign import. The most famous dairy company is Mengniu (Mongolian Cow), and the most traditional Chinese dairy products all have origins in border regions - Milk and yogurt products of Inner Mongolia, rubing and rulao of the Bai people in Yunnan (which seems to be a Chinese take on Indian paneer), Cantonese milk pudding (distinctively Cantonese, but clearly adapted from European influences), and Beijing palace cheese (seemingly from the Manchu Qing, but I could be wrong). Here in Xinjiang, there's katiq, kaymak, ayran, suzme, qurut, and many other dairy products that have many names in the minority languages but lack such distinctions in Chinese.

You'd think at some point dairy would have spread from the Silk Road to the rest of China - The Mongols didn't introduce it during the Yuan dynasty? I go to any supermarket in China, and the local commercial brands of yogurt all use artwork conjuring up the grasslands and minorities of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang... There's also the new, overpriced, fad yogurts that claim to be foreign specialties - There's a new Chinese brand of Greek yogurt displaying Athenian architecture, an older Bulgarian yogurt displaying a woman in traditional clothes, and a slightly newer kefir (开菲尔) displaying another nondescript ethnic woman, perhaps Azeri. They're always in the same packaging, they're always twice as expensive as other yogurts, and they don't taste anything like the equivalent products found in Western countries - In fact, all three taste nearly identical after I did a taste comparison test.

 

[pa_dutch]

Europe had its own fermented dairy culture, with things like skyr or herbstmilch alongside rennet cheese. Yoghurt ultimately came from the Balkans to become a health food fad, taking over from the traditional forms.

These are new to me! Skyr is interesting in that it is said to have come to Iceland from Norway, but the traditional died out in Scandinavia. It makes me wonder if the British Isles had any such product at some point, and whether or not the English language had any native word for such a product before the adoption of "yogurt" from Turkish. All I can think of are buttermilk and sour or soured milk, which aren't quite the same.

 

[carlton_bach]

These are new to me! Skyr is interesting in that it is said to have come to Iceland from Norway, but the traditional died out in Scandinavia. It makes me wonder if the British Isles had any such product at some point, and whether or not the English language had any native word for such a product before the adoption of "yogurt" from Turkish. All I can think of are buttermilk and sour or soured milk, which aren't quite the same.

The big problem is that often enough, language is imprecise. "Sour milk" may or may not be the same as "Sauermilch", "Dickmilch" or "Herbstmilch", which is a fairly long-lasting dairy product not dissimilar to yoghurt. In German sources, we have references to something called Ziger that may be anything from bacterial-culture based curds to acid-precipitated curd cheese to buttermilk cheese. The only uniting feature seems to have been that it was eaten fresh, not aged.

I think the traditional fermented dairy culture in much of Europe died out when the trade in butter and cream took off in the 16th and 17th centuries. That dictated different processes for cow milk, leading to an increase in cheese production and a drop in fermentation. You didn't get that in Iceland. Nor in other parts where sheep or goats were traditionally kept - what did the English do with their ewes' milk?

 

[pa_dutch]

The big problem is that often enough, language is imprecise. "Sour milk" may or may not be the same as "Sauermilch", "Dickmilch" or "Herbstmilch", which is a fairly long-lasting dairy product not dissimilar to yoghurt. In German sources, we have references to something called Ziger that may be anything from bacterial-culture based curds to acid-precipitated curd cheese to buttermilk cheese. The only uniting feature seems to have been that it was eaten fresh, not aged.

I think the traditional fermented dairy culture in much of Europe died out when the trade in butter and cream took off in the 16th and 17th centuries. That dictated different processes for cow milk, leading to an increase in cheese production and a drop in fermentation. You didn't get that in Iceland. Nor in other parts where sheep or goats were traditionally kept - what did the English do with their ewes' milk?

Very interesting! I've also been reading about a yogurt-like product from the Appalachian region of the United States called clabber, which was originally brought there from Scots Irish immigrants in colonial times - The name comes from a Scottish Gaelic word for sour milk, clábair. I assume it survived in the American South longer than in its homeland for the same reason skyr remained popular in Iceland long after other Scandinavian thickened sour milk products?

So basically, the modern popularity of yogurt in Western countries (and presumably in East Asia as well) just comes from an organized advertising campaign? Its purported health benefits tied with its exoticness made it more appealing than traditional fermented milk products that already existed?

It's also interesting how the word itself, "yogurt," made such inroads over native words for same products, or other foreign words. Kefir is a product similar to yogurt that has seen some success in foreign markets (I've seen it in the United States and in China) but nowhere near as much as yogurt, which has evolved into so many forms. It's also notable that the famous American yogurt company Colombo, which was founded by an Armenian immigrant and helped to make yogurt popular in the United States in the early 20th Century, originally marketed its products using the Armenian word "madzoon" but ultimately changed to the Turkish word "yogurt" in its advertising.

 

[carlton_bach]

So basically, the modern popularity of yogurt in Western countries (and presumably in East Asia as well) just comes from an organized advertising campaign? Its purported health benefits tied with its exoticness made it more appealing than traditional fermented milk products that already existed?

I think it was a case of right place, right time. A lot of industrial development is path dependent. Yoghurt - by that name - became a popular product throughout Europe and the US around the time the dairy business industrialised, so the factories were geared to produce it, the labs turned out yoghurt cultures (rather than kefir, skyr, clabber, dickmilch) and the shops stocked yoghurt. Once the infrastructure is there, it stays there. If the health craze of the decade had been kefir or skyr, we'd be having that (and it would not make an ounce of difference to the finished product).

BTW, in Germany, yoghurt was never completely dominant even in the darkest days of industrial dairying. There was always kefir and dickmilch, too, made by a similar process, but using different cultures. And quark, which was pushed really hard by the proponents of an autarkic diet as a healthy meat substitute. But that is quite dissimilar, rennet-based and closer to cottage cheese.