Hello from Dali!
It’s been a very busy two weeks, starting with a short trip to Germany for a conference in the lovely city of Leipzig. It was an event at the University of Leipzig, which is running an extensive, multi-year project on secularities.
After that, an overnight flight back to Shanghai, and two days later, back on another plane to Yunnan to come and do some more work on China’s dairy industry. I’ll be presenting this paper at Fudan on the 24th, so time to get to work!
One of the things I am doing here in Dali is talking to people about how things have changed since the industry started taking off in the 1980s. I have the business side pretty well covered from other materials, so now I want to talk to primary producers, i.e., the people with the cows.
I was already here in the summer, and so met up with some old friends, like the owner of a business that makes “milk fans.”
Now in case you don’t read my blog regularly (gasp!), “milk fans” (乳扇子) are a traditional dairy preparation unique to this area. They’re fresh cheese that is stretched and dried on bamboo poles, which looks like fans–hence the name. You will see vendors in Kunming selling it roasted or fried, but the production is mostly here.
This shop mostly sells on a large scale, but has a little room in the back where they make small amounts for people like me who want to see how it’s done.
The first part is just like making ricotta: heat milk to a low simmer and add a souring agent to make it curdle. For ricotta, I usually use a few tablespoons of lemon juice. Here she is using lactic acid that is leftover from making yoghurt. That’s a lot stronger, and the milk curdles almost immediately.
She then strains the curds, and uses a spoon to push out the extra water and start to work them into a stretchy ball. This is when we go from ricotta to mozzarella in texture. She returns the ball to the pan and spends a few minutes moving it around in the whey, pressing it with the back of the spoon to squeeze out more water, and bring out the elasticity. The cheese gets much denser and stretchier.
Finally, she takes it out and rolls it around one wooden dowel, then around a second. The cheese turns from a lump to a sheet, that she stretches around two vertical poles. She made this look quite easy, but I am sure that getting the cheese to stretch evenly and thinly without tearing is something that takes a lot of practice.
The sheets are normally dried and become rock hard. To eat, they need to be softened over heat, hence the frying or roasting. It is common to see them sold roasted with sweet condensed milk, and then rolled up on a stick. It’s like wearing a hat that says “tourist” in big flashing lights.
Thomas DuBois 杜博思 
Hi Thomas,
I came across your post whilst searching for things to do in Dali, and this particular post (and the previous and the next lol) had me salivating. I am planning a visit to Xizhou and so was wondering if the place you’d visited was in Xizhou. Did you go with a guide? Could you remember the whereabouts of this shop? If you do, please share it with me because I’d love to witness the making of and taste this local specialty. Also, thank you for posting the QR code, but the user is no longer available in WeChat.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Hi nicah! Let me ask my friend again for her QR code – maybe she has a new one. Her WeChat ID is wxid_hk3k28167oja12
In the meantime, you might be able to find her on your own. She’s not in Xizhou, she’s in the old city (古城), near Cangshanmen (苍山门). Find the Christian Church (基督教礼拜堂 — that seems to be the only name on the map), and then turn WEST (uphill). It’s about three minutes walk from there, on your right, and has a big green sign out front.
Also, for some reason the comments aren’t showing up on the page, so please excuse if there’s some delay in getting back to you!
Hey there Thomas! Thank you so much for the detailed directions – I’ll definitely go and explore the area – just don’t want to miss it as I tend to get curious about too many things at the same time, and have gotten lost before haha!
I’ve found the church on the map, and correct me if I’m wrong, the shop would be around Pingdeng Road (平等路)? Was the shop neighbouring fruit shops, egg shops and shops selling rain coats?
Also, yes, I think she must have changed her number.
Pingdeng road is the one. You walk up past one intersection and the shop is on the right. If you reach the market, you’ve gone too far. The shops nearby do sell fruit, eggs and raincoats, but that’s most shops in the city. The corner of Pingdeng Road (across from the church) has a Muslim butcher with a black sign, and I think there’s a bank across the way from that.
It’s just a small shopfront, but they are super nice. Nobody speaks English. They do make some rushan there, and you might see the poles lined up in the back of the room (it’s separated by glass, so they might not be visible). The owner is constantly coming up with new products–this is most of her WeChat feed–and they’ve all been amazing. Rushan itself isn’t worth buying unless you have a way to cook it, but anything else will be a good bet.
I’ve been scouring the internet for any of the easy Yunnan cheese recipes and I haven’t been able to find anything. Might someone be able to help me procure a recipe? Thank you.
Sorry about the late reply–maybe I can help! Did you mean a recipe for making the cheese or for using it?