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Fermented milk from Japan

Raku, so and daigo (ancient Japanese dairy, Heian period)酪

Raku, so and daigo are the dairy foods of the Nara and Heian court, known only from old texts and modern reconstructions. Raku was a sour milk, so was milk boiled down to about a tenth, and daigo was the oily liquid that sweats out of butter oil; it is also the finest of the Buddhist five flavours, thought to be like cheese or butter oil. This is a boundary entry; raku is the ferment here.

Fully documentedFermented milk7 h – 8 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe so amounts are the Engishiki's tribute rule of 1 to of milk for 1 shō of so; the raku starter ratio is the Qimin Yaoshu's. Daigo is given only as a yield from so.
Milk, for so1 to (10 shō)Boiled down to give 1 shō of so (Engishiki, 927)[hirata2023]
Cow milk, for soAbout 10 parts of milk to 1 part of soBoiled down to about a tenth of its volume (MAFF)[maff-so]
Good sweet lao (raku) from an earlier batch, for rakuHalf a spoon per sheng of milkThe starter in the Qimin Yaoshu method[qmys]
Starterraku: backslop with earlier raku (Qimin Yaoshu)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 h – 8 h

Start
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What changes: Milk is simmered gently for four or five boils and strained into a pottery jar

Step 1 of 5
Raku (酪), heat and strain the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The Qimin Yaoshu method heats the milk on a gentle fire, brings it to the boil four or five times, skims off the skin (kept to make su, the butter-like product), and strains the milk through a raw-silk bag into a pottery jar. Output: strained hot milk in a jar.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
liquid
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raku, so and daigo are the dairy foods of the Nara and Heian court, known only from old texts and modern reconstructions. Raku was a sour milk, so was milk boiled down to about a tenth, and daigo was the oily liquid that sweats out of butter oil; it is also the finest of the Buddhist five flavours, thought to be like cheese or butter oil. This is a boundary entry; raku is the ferment here. Made in 5 steps over 7 h – 8 h. The longest step, so (蘇), milk boiled down, takes 7–8 h (MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture).

Key numbers
Main step7–8 hReported[maff-so]So (蘇), milk boiled down
Temperature22–25 °CMeasured[hirata2023]Daigo (醍醐), oil sweating from butter oil
AciditypH 3.8Measured[hirata2023]Raku (酪), leave overnight to set

What makes this one different

Raku is the fermented milk. So is milk boiled down to about a tenth, sometimes called an ancient cheese, and daigo is the best of the five flavours of the Nirvana Sutra.

Boundary
Raku is the fermented milk here; so is a concentrated milk and daigo is butter oil

Related ferments

Variants

  • Vedic dadhi (ancient India)Raw milk left 36 h at 30 °C separated and smelled putrid; with a lactic starter, 12 h at 30 °C gave an even curd at pH 4.8, so dadhi was judged an intended sour milk.
  • Roku-raku (漉酪)Rich lao is hung in a raw-cloth bag until it stops dripping, briefly fried and sun-dried into pear-sized balls (Qimin Yaoshu). Hirata and colleagues (2010) identified it as unmatured cheese like Mongolian khoroot and Turkic kurut.

Safety

In the Qimin Yaoshu method, the milk for raku is boiled four or five times before the earlier raku is added.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Engishiki (927) sets the so tribute rule of boiling 1 to of milk to 1 shō of so. The Honzō Wamyō (918) and Ishinpō (984) mix up the characters for su and so. Milk drinking began in Japan under Emperor Kotoku (645–654), when immigrants presented milk. So first appears in the Engishiki and the Seiji Yoryaku, which describe the tribute system under which each region made so for the court. It was a luxury only nobles and officials ate, used as an offering at the palace Buddhist rite at New Year. It was reproduced at the Asuka Historical Museum in 1987 and later sold commercially (MAFF). The Nirvana Sutra names milk, raku, raw su, ripe su and daigo as the five flavours, and the best taste, daigo, was twice the name of an emperor (ALIC). In 2010 Hirata and colleagues reproduced the Seiminyoujyutu recipes and identified raku as sour milk (abstract).

Microbes
No study we found names the microbes of raku.
  1. [hirata2023] Hirata M. 2023, So, Buddhism and dairy products (蘇―仏教と乳製品―), Chisei 151:46–51, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine repositorypaper
  2. [maff-so] MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries), 蘇(そ), Nara Prefecture, にっぽん伝統食図鑑 (Nippon Dentō-shoku Zukan)gov
  3. [alic] ALIC (Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation), 【業務関連情報】日本人とチーズ, consumer corner, last updated 28 June 2013gov
  4. [hirata2010] Hirata M., Yoneda Y., Ariga H., Uchida K., Motoshima H., Hanada M., Kawai M. 2010, Reproduction and identification of ancient dairy products in East Asia based on Seiminyoujyutu, Milk Science 59(1):9–22 (abstract, read on FAO AGRIS)paper
  5. [qmys] Jia Sixie, Qimin Yaoshu (6th century), vol. 6, ch. 57 養羊, 作酪法 and 作漉酪法; Chinese text on Wikisource (齊民要術/卷第六), read 2026-10archive