2015 Volume 64 Issue 3 Pages 191-199
Field observations and interviews were conducted in fisherfolk households of Cordova Municipality, Mactan Island, Province of Cebu, Philippines to elucidate their usage of milk and milk products, the timing to adopt milk and milk products into their livelihoods, and then to verify the spread and acceptance of five forms of milk culture into the non-milk cultural sphere. The milk and milk products were never used in traditional main diets such as seafoods, but consumed for breakfast with bread, biscuits or rice and for a snack as sweets. The milk and milk products mainly spread to the Philippines in colonial occupation periods from Spain, Japan and America. It was concluded that the milk and milk products were processed into very sweet products in the hot and humid environment of the Philippines, but did not influence the traditional main diets basically consisting of seafoods. They comprised four of the original five forms of milk culture, ‘supplementary nutrition’, ‘favorite’, ‘fusion with rice’ and ‘western-style food culture’ into the Philippines. These same trends are also found in other non-milk cultural spheres such as Southeast Asian countries and Japan. It is thought that these characteristics are the first stage in spreading and accepting milk culture into non-milk cultural spheres in general.
