Have Chinese (and surrounding) cultures traditionally heated their milk?

Question

I’ve spoken with many middle aged Chinese people who have reported that for as long as they can remember, even growing up on a farm, they would never drink milk, even their own cattle’s, without first boiling it on the hob firstly. Yet many make claims that until later this century nobody ever pasteurized milk.

I’m mainly interested in Eastern Chinese cultures, but then realized that throughout history this might have been less well defined and even now is relatively broad. For that reason I wouldn’t mind comparative remarks on for example Mongolian, Korean, or Russian (or even Tibetan or Xinjiangese cultural traditions. Please feel free to scope your answer however it will seem most sensible and insight-yielding to do so.

Lastly please forgive my ignorance but I simply have no idea where I would start in trying to look for answers to this myself.

Answer 1

As far as I know, Chinese traditionally do not consume much milk and also do not like to consume raw meat (unlike some Europeans). The usual reason given is that raw meat would be unsafe to consume. So it looks more than plausible to me that Chinese would not drink raw milk for similar reasons.

Mongolians on the other hand consume lots of milk and also milk products. Not sure about 100 years ago, but nowadays there is a strong aversion against unprocessed meat or milk, also because it is considered unsanitary/unsafe. For most milk products the first step is to boil the milk. Airag is produced from raw milk, but through fermentation and contains alcohol, so it is considered safe to consume.