Rushan (Bai Cheese)

Rushan ('milk fan') is a Bai-minority fresh cheese from Dali in Yunnan, one of the few traditionally produced cheeses in Chinese food culture and an anomaly in a culinary tradition that largely does not include dairy fermentation. The Bai people of the Erhai Lake basin have kept cattle for milk production for over a thousand years — an unusual practice in the broader Han Chinese context, where pastoral nomadic food cultures were geographically separated from the farming heartland.

The cheese is made by adding a souring agent (typically acidic whey or sometimes a citrus juice) to fresh cow's milk, then working the curd in hot water — a technique similar to mozzarella production — and stretching it into thin fan-shaped sheets around a bamboo stick while still warm. The finished piece is pale yellow-white, pliable when fresh, and dries firm within hours. The flavour is mild and lactic, without the sharp fermented notes of aged European cheeses.

Eating: held on a bamboo stick over charcoal, grilled until the outside blisters and browns, then sprinkled with sugar, chilli powder, or flavoured sauces. The warming makes the interior briefly gooey before it sets again. Alternatively rolled around rose petal jam or red bean paste as a sweet street snack.

Sold from carts throughout Dali Old Town and the Erhai Lake villages — Shuanglang, Xizhou and Shaxi all have rushan vendors. Outside Yunnan, rushan is essentially unavailable.