🏺 Traditional dairy products

Traditional dairy products are made from milk to centuries-old folk recipes that predate refrigerators and dairy plants. Their main purpose is preserving fast-spoiling milk. In a review surveying more than 100 countries, FAO names three age-old techniques: boiling milk straight after milking, lactic fermentation and disinfecting containers with smoke.

The most widespread method is souring. In hot parts of Africa, where daytime temperatures reach 35 °C, milk sours within 12–24 hours without refrigeration, so sour milk is a staple there. The starter is mostly natural, its microbes often unknown, so every region has its own flavour. That gave rise to kefir, koumiss, matsoni, katyk, ayran, dahi and amasi. Sour milk is churned into butter, butter is clarified into ghee, and cheese and whey are dried — hence kurt, aaruul and chhurpi.

These products are closely tied to regions, peoples and animals: mare's milk among steppe nomads, camel's milk in deserts, yak milk in the Himalayas, buffalo milk in South Asia. East African herders such as the Maasai and Borana smoke gourds and wooden vessels over particular plants, for flavour and disinfection. According to FAO, ghee keeps for up to two years, and in 2021 India produced almost 40 % of the world's butter and ghee.

The line between traditional and industrial is blurred: kefir, yogurt and feta are now made in factories. In the EU the names 'yoghurt', 'kefir', 'kumis', 'smetana' and 'viili' are reserved for dairy products only, and the Codex Alimentarius standard separately mentions strained yogurt, labneh and ymer.

Why it matters to you. A natural starter gives no standard result: the flavour and safety of a home-made product vary from batch to batch. Buying farm sour milk or cheese? Ask whether the milk was pasteurised: the NHS advises pregnant women to avoid unpasteurised milk, cream and yogurt.