1. food and drink

Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
A History of Milk in Asia
Friday 26 June
Session 1: Dairy and national development - 22.1.47
Chair: Jonathan Saha
9:00-10:30
Melanie Marten, Bangkok, Thailand
“Westernization or Glocalization? The Steady Rise of Cow Milk Consumption
in Thailand”
Andrea Wiley, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA
“Growing children through milk:” A comparative and historical perspective on
Asian trends in milk consumption.
Pannier et al., French Center for International Cooperation on Agriculture
Research for Development (CIRAD) and French School of Asian Studies
(EFEO-Hanoi).
“On the origins of dairy farming in north Vietnam”
10:30-10:45
Break
Session 2: Colonial contexts: Milk’s imperial expansion - 22.1.47
Chair: Erich de Wald
10:45-12:45
Natasha Pairaudeau, Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge
University
“Coming with the milk: Indian migrant dairymen in colonial Southeast Asia”
Jagdish Dawar, Department of History & Ethnography, Mizoram University
“History of Milk in North-east India: Mizoram since pre-colonial times“
Annick Guenel, Center of Southeast Asia – CNRS/EHESS, Paris, France
“The dairy industry in Vietnam: a colonial initiative?”
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
Jonathan Saha, University of Bristol
“Milk to Mandalay: The production, supply and consumption of cow’s milk in
colonial Burma”
12:45-14:00
Lunch
Session 3: The reception and consumption of milk as a new food in East and Southeast
Asia - 22.1.47
Chair: Natasha Pairaudeau
14:00-16:00
Hilary Smith, University of Denver
“Becoming “Intolerant”: How the Rise of Milk Culture Made China Sick”
Le Thanh Hai
“Dairy forces in Vietnam”
Erich de Wald, University Campus Suffolk
“Marketing motherhood: advertising and consuming condensed milk in the
late-colonial Dutch East Indies and French Indochina”
Geoffrey Pakiam, SOAS University of London
“The Consumption of Dairy and Vegetable Oil Products in the Malay
Peninsula, c. 1890 – 1960.“
16:00-16:15
Break
Auditorium 22.0.11
16:15-17:15
Keynote lecture by Professor Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology, Harvard
University
“When is Food Ethnic and What does that Imply? Reproducing Inequalities in
the Framing of Asian Cuisines”
17:45-19:30
Farewell reception in Asia House
Convenor: Natasha Pairaudeau
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
Abstracts
Melanie Marten
MA student, Bangkok, Thailand
Westernization or Glocalization? The Steady Rise of Cow Milk Consumption in Thailand
Andrea S. Wiley
Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA
“Growing children through milk:” A comparative and historical perspective on Asian
trends in milk consumption.
India is currently the world’s largest producer and consumer of dairy, and while dairying has ancient
roots there, the recent surge in milk consumption parallels similar trends in East and Southeast Asia.
Escalating milk consumption in Asia is occurring at the same time as milk consumption is declining in
Europe and the United States. A comparative historical perspective helps illuminate the underlying
social and cultural forces that contribute these divergent trends. At the same time, attention to milk’s
“specialness” as a food is needed; milk possesses some unusual qualities that allow particular meanings
to attach to it. Since milk is the sole source of food for rapidly growing infant mammals, and has
biochemical components that support the growth and maturation of infants, milk has widely come to be
viewed as a food that enhances growth, most especially in height. Growth in height marks not only the
physical size of a country’s citizenry, but also national and individual strength, wealth, and power. In
India and China (and late 19th century U.S. when milk consumption likewise surged), where child growth
may be stunted from undernutrition and infectious disease, evidence of enhanced physical growth
provides confirmation of economic and social development and a thriving family. The fact that
politically and economically powerful nations tend to have the highest levels of milk consumption and
the tallest citizens creates a package of meanings that allows milk consumption to be an essential “mark
of new money” (New York Times, 2007) in many Asian countries. In this paper I compare milk
consumption trends in India, China, and the U.S., highlighting the ways in which the “milk-growth”
linkage has been used advance a variety of social goals.
Jean-Daniel Cesaro
Doctoral researcher, The French Center for International Cooperation on Agriculture Research for
Development (CIRAD)
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
Emmanuel Pannier
Post-doctoral researcher
French School of Asian Studies (EFEO-Hanoi).
Guillaume Duteurtre
Researcher, The French Center for International Cooperation on Agriculture Research for Development
(CIRAD)
On the origins of dairy farming in north Vietnam
Recent trends of dairy sector in Vietnam show a fast increase of milk production, especially around Ho
Chi Minh City and Hanoi. This dynamic is based on the coexistence of small farmers and very large farms.
However, milk production is a quite recent activity, and consumption of dairy products is a relatively
new habit for urban citizens. What are the origins of dairy farming in Vietnam? Is it a new business
activity for rural households, an old souvenir of the colonial period, or a product of the former
collectivist economy? Our paper introduces some key elements on the origins of the national dairy
sector development and focuses on the case of Ba Vì, one of the most renowned region for dairy
production in north Vietnam. This study is based on quantitative data combined with deep fieldworks
surveys within the framework of a multi-disciplinary project on livestock development pathways in
Vietnam (Revalter). The analyze goes through the different sequences of historical development, from
the development of a French dairy farm during colonial time, to its nationalization during the collectivist
period. After the “Renovation” policy (1986), the former State farm became a research center. Later on,
land and animals were “confined” to independent smallholders. The dairy production really started to
develop in the middle of the 1990s, with the development of foreign-owned and national dairy
processing industries, and with the support of smallhoder dairy farms by a national dairy development
program and many local initiatives. More recently, a new large-scale farm was built in the Ba Vi district
by a private large dairy industry, showing another shift in the dairy development historical process. The
history of the dairy sector in Ba Vì Dairy is a very interesting point of view on the institutional changes
that shape the historical patterns of agriculture in Vietnam.
Natasha L. Pairaudeau
Research Associate, Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge University
Coming with the milk: Indian migrant dairymen in colonial Southeast Asia
From the mid-nineteenth century, the listing for ‘merchants of milk’ in the French colonial government’s
annual business listings for Cochinchina consisted entirely of Tamil names. By the turn of the century,
some thirty Tamil businesses supplied milk to the Saigon and Cholon. Yet in 1913, the scores of Indian
milkmen listed in the colonial commercial pages abruptly disappeared, replaced by a single listing:
‘Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co., 19 Mac Mahon Street’. The rise and subsequent decline of
Cochinchina’s Indian dairymen traces a pattern which repeated itself across Southeast Asia. Indian
dairymen had been among the first and most active suppliers of milk to Southeast Asia, where dairy was
not a customary part of local diets, with the expansion of European empires in the region. Indian dairy
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
enterprises then declined in Southeast Asia with the advent of pasteurisation and of tinned condensed
milk, and the circulation – and aggressive marketing – within Southeast Asian societies of new ideas
about hygiene. The paper draws attention to commonalities in the organisation of Indian dairy
production and ancillary activities across the region, from Penang to Saigon to Singapore. It analyses the
connections between migrant Tamil, and later Sikh, cattle-raising and milk production, the growing
demands of European military and settler populations for the foodstuff, and shifts in patterns of
consumption among local populations.
Jagdish Lal Dawar
Professor, Department of History & Ethnography, Mizoram University
History of Milk in North-east India: Mizoram since pre-colonial times
Mizoram situated between 21°58’ north to 24°35’ north latitude and 91°15’ east to 93°29’ east
longitude covering an area of 21,081 sq.km. forms one of the seven states of north-east India. It is
flanked by Manipur, Assam and Tripua states of India and shares International border with Myanmar
and Bangladesh. . In pre-colonial times the various nomenclatures were used for the tribes inhabiting
the area known as Mizoram today. They were variously known as ‘Kuki’, ‘Chin’ and ‘Lushai’. This area
was annexed by the British in 1890. The Christian missionaries started coming to this land since 1894.
The Mizos used to rear animals: Mithuns (a breed of buffaloe), goats etc. but their milk was not used for
human consumption. The Mithuns had economic as well as cultural value. The Indians (the Nepalis and
Bengalis) who worked as policemen as well as in the lower echelons of colonial administration had
brought cows for milk consumption. Though the British officials as well as the missionaries used to carry
dried milk with them but once the Nepalis started rearing cows, the fresh milk was supplied to them.
The missionaries encouraged the Mizos also to take to milk and tea instead of Zu (the local rice-beer).
Initially, they resisted but gradually some converts started taking the milk. However, it was in the postcolonial period, specifically during the ‘insurgency’ period the milk became popular among the Mizos.
This paper is an humble attempt to trace the history of milk production, distribution and consumption in
Mizoram. It is based on colonial and missionary archives as well as oral sources.
Annick Guénel
Research Assistant, Center of Southeast Asia – CNRS/EHESS, Paris, France
The dairy industry in Vietnam: a colonial initiative?
The development of cattle breeding was a recurrent concern of the French colonial government in
Indochina, and fell within the veterinarian’s remit. Although Cambodia supplied good beef cattle to the
colonizers, who could even export it to neighboring countries, there was no local dairy breed, and
originally animal milk consumption was nearly unknown in the Peninsula. In the Vietnamese deltas and
plains, livestock, oxen and buffaloes were mainly used for agricultural work and traction, and there was
no real pastoral activity in the Northern and Central highlands. The first crossbreeding attempts with
European dairy breeds mostly failed, partly because of their lack of resistance to the local animal
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
diseases. Another crucial factor pointed out by the vets was the limited supply of fodder during the dry
season.
However, from the 1920s, the issue of milk supply was raised again. During the interwar period, some
progress in the control of rinderpest, the most important local animal disease, was achieved. A new
global concern about human nutrition, in particular in the colonial world, also emerged. The Indian
community provided the example to follow. Although the Europeans did not consume the milk of its
dairies near Saigon, which they judged unhygienic, the Vets noticed that local-Indian crossbreeds were
rather good producers. The import of the Sind breed was associated with the creation of experimental
farms in Central and Northern Vietnam, selection programs, and adaptation of fodder plants. On the eve
of the Second World War, due to the fear of supply being disrupted from the Metropole, larger projects
were drawn up.
In this paper, we will discuss the real impact of French colonial policy relating to dairy production on the
changes in local food diet.
Jonathan Saha
AHRC Early Career Fellow, Lecturer in Modern History, University of Bristol
Milk to Mandalay: The production, supply and consumption of cow’s milk in colonial
Burma
From the late-nineteenth century onwards, British imperial writers in Burma regularly moaned about
milk. They complained that it was simply impossible to get fresh, pure milk in the colony, particularly in
rural areas. Their frustrations were heightened by the presence of large herds of what they deemed to
be useless cattle. When they did get milk, they were suspicious about its quality. To meet this demand
for milk, new arrangements had to be put in place across the country to ensure that it was hygienically
produced and delivered, and that it was safe for consumption. Human-cattle interactions were
transformed, as milking practices were imported. Increasingly, medical regulations came to govern the
process in the early-twentieth century, and condensed and powdered milk were also subject to scientific
forms of analysis. This paper will use the example of milk in Burma to explore the wider cultural and
material histories of food in colonial contexts. It will locate imperial anxieties about milk within British
perceptions of Burmese human-animal encounters and consumption habits to argue that these worries
suggest deeper tensions.
Hilary A. Smith
Assistant Professor, University of Denver (Denver, Colorado, USA)
Becoming “Intolerant”: How the Rise of Milk Culture Made China Sick
This paper explores the idea of “lactose intolerance” (in Chinese, ru tang bu nai zheng) in late twentiethcentury China. Lactose intolerance, a concept that emerged in the 1960s, privileges the European body
and milk-rich Western diets as universal standards. The term frames the inability to digest milk after
infancy as a defect – intolerance – when in fact it is the natural state of more than two-thirds of the
world’s population, including most people in Asia. This is not surprising considering that modern
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
nutritional science developed in societies dominated by Europeans who could digest milk. What is more
surprising is that lactose intolerance came to be seen as a medical problem in China, too.
In China, the concept of lactose intolerance marked a departure from classical medical ideas about milk
and dietary difference. As early as the first century B.C.E., Chinese medical writers pronounced that
foods appropriate for people from one region might prove inedible to people from another. From at
least the thirteenth century, Chinese writers presented dairy products as suited to northerners,
particularly steppe nomads with hardy constitutions, but not to most Chinese.
In modern China this old emphasis on regionally appropriate diets gave way to a new universalism;
consuming milk as Westerners did came to be a marker of modernity, not foreignness. While Chinese
ideas about milk had changed, however, the facts of physiology had not. The bodies of Chinese adults
did not begin producing lactose-digesting enzymes when scientists decided that milk was essential to a
modern diet. In those bodies, fresh milk was as likely to cause cramps and diarrhea as it had been
centuries before. So how did the experience of bodily difference, and the heritage of ideas about
regional constitutions, affect the reception of this freighted concept? That is the question this paper
addresses.
Le Thanh Hai
PhD, correspondent for the Vietnamese Section of the RFI, columnist for Sai Gon Giai Phong Thu Bay
weekly and Tuoi Tre Cuoi Tuan weekly in Vietnam
Dairy forces in Vietnam
This paper aims to identify forces accelerating the making of a new taste in the Vietnamese foodscape.
A century ago, cows-milk was a foreign product. Today Vinamilk is widely recognised as a national
product. Market demand stimulates bankers to build cattle farms on an industrial scale. Dairy products
penetrated into everyday life. The milk business is an important part of the economy and one of the
most active branches for foreign investment.
Starting with my experience in the field since 1985, I gather all available data to build up a grounded
theory to explain the way a Western drink which was an urban luxury became a food in everyday use
even in rural areas. Is it a heritage of the French colonialism of the late 19th century, or an outcome of
American aid investment in the 1960s, or maybe one of the achievements from the Vietnamese
Renovation in the 1980s? It is a national development or globalisation? Did the success come from
technology or marketing, from production chains or from distribution networks? Which element is the
key in production: imported powder or cattle farms?
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Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia
7th International ADI Conference
24-26 June 2015
Erich de Wald
Lecturer in History, University Campus Suffolk (UK)
Marketing motherhood: advertising and consuming condensed milk in the latecolonial Dutch East Indies and French Indochina
European and American companies such as Anglo-Swiss, Borden’s and Nestlé began producing
condensed milk for colonial markets in Asia in the early 1910s. Within ten years, their marketing efforts
shifted from selling condensed milk to European expatriate colonials to Asian consumers. As in their
western markets, these companies sought to encourage consumption of their products among women
as mothers. Their advertising efforts demonstrate a particular concern with educating mothers about
the benefits of cow’s milk for growing children. Condensed milk was touted as an economical way of
ensuring the next generation would grow to be big, strong, ‘civilised’ and ‘modern’; doing so was a
mother’s duty. That late-colonial advertising campaigns should make use of discourses of social progress
and even national self-strengthening to market western commodities is not especially surprising. What
is more intriguing is the strength of mothers’ responses. By the late 1930s, mothers of the middling
classes in the Dutch East Indies and French Vietnam ranked as the single most important group of
consumers of condensed milk produced by these Euro-American firms. As revealed in letters they wrote
to the companies and to local newspapers and women’s magazines, these mothers’ decisions to
consume condensed milk and feed it to their families bore only superficial resemblance to the
discourses disseminated by advertisers. In this paper, I will consider how these corporate colonial
discourses linking condensed milk with motherhood were actively translated by women as consumers.
While advertisements appealed and ultimately worked in convincing women to buy condensed milk,
corporate discourses were decoded and adapted in ways that ultimately worked contrary to the
maternalist and ‘civilising’ intent of the advertising campaigns.
Geoffrey K. Pakiam
PhD candidate, Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, SOAS, University of London
The Consumption of Dairy and Vegetable Oil Products in the Malay Peninsula, c. 1890
– 1960.
Why do nutritional factors account for relatively little in decisions to ingest certain sources of fat over
others? In colonial Malaya, fats from dairy milk, coconuts (Cocos nucifera) and oil palm fruit (Elaeis
guineensis) were consumed widely, but for different reasons, and with varying nutritional impacts.
Unprocessed palm oil and fresh dairy milk were perhaps the most nourishing of available fat sources.
The latter also provided valuable sugars, protein and minerals. Yet it was coconut oil, despite its relative
lack of vitamins, which remained the most widely used fat source throughout the period. A somewhat
similar trajectory occurred with the spread of sweetened condensed milk as an infant food during the
early twentieth century. Colonial officials and scientists frequently focused on the consumer, blaming
ignorance, poverty or tradition for the popularity of these nutritionally flawed foodstuffs. Overlooked,
however, were the different circuits through which these items were produced and marketed, which in
turn shaped their social meaning amongst consumers.
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