Soya Milk 100+ Years Ago In Paris France

Caséo-Sojaïne did pioneer work in exploiting soy, raised the oil and protein levels as well as crop stability.

Wiki – In 1905, while he was still a graduate student, Li presented (in French) his first paper on soy at the Second International Dairy Congress in Paris, and published it in the proceedings of the conference. In 1910 he published a short treatise in Chinese on the economic and health benefits of soy beans and soy products, especially doufu, which he maintained could alleviate diabetes and arthritic pain, and then in 1912 Le Soja in French. At the annual lunch of France’s Society for Acclimatization (Société d’Acclimatation), in keeping with its tradition of introducing new foods from little-known plants, Li served a meal of vegetarian ham (jambon végétal), soy cheese (fromage de Soya), soy preserves (confitures de Soya, such as crème de marron), and soy bread (pain de Soya).

Together with his partner L. Grandvoinnet, in 1912 Li published a 150-page pamphlet containing their series of eight earlier articles: Le soja: sa culture, ses usages alimentaires, thérapeutiques, agricoles et industriels (Soya – Its Cultivation, Dietary, Therapeutic, Agricultural and Industrial Uses) (Paris: A Challamel, 1912). The soy historians William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi call it “one of the earliest, most important, influential, creative, interesting, and carefully researched books ever written about soybeans and soyfoods. Its bibliography on soy is larger than any published prior to that time.”

Li and the factory engineers developed and patented equipment for producing soymilk and beancurd, including the world’s first soymilk patents. Shurtleff and Aoyagi comment that their 1912 patent was “packed with original ideas, including various French-style cheeses and the world’s first industrial soy protein isolate, called Sojalithe, after its counterpart, Galalith, made from milk protein.” Li claimed that Sojalithe could also be used as a substitute for ivory.

3 promotional postcards given out by salespersons – circa 1910

Going deeper – Chinese Revolutionaries in France – full article. –

It was in La Garenne-Colombes that Deng Xiaoping met Zhou Enlai, already a well known student leader of the 1919 May 4th Movement in Tianjin, and Ye Rongzhen, a Sichuanese worker-student and later one of the marshalls of the PRC. Deng shared a room with ‘elder brother’ Zhou who was six years his senior and leader of the Socialist Youth League of China in France. Together with Cai Hesen, who in 1918 had co-founded the New People’s Study Society in Changsha, and Li Wenhai, later a political commissar of the Red Army during the Long March, Zhou Enlai had founded the league in Montargis. In February 1922 Deng moved there too taking work at Hutchinson’s Rubber Factory. He was only in Montargis seven months, then left to go to Chatillon Secondary School in Chatillon-sur-Seine, but was back working in Hutchinson’s again in early 1923. However he lost his job after only a month because of his political activities, but he stayed on in Mantargis until June when he returned to La Garenne-Colombes and worked again as a fitter, this time in the Renault factory, where he remained until he left France.

Wiki – Deng Xiaoping

Related piece – A GROUP FORGOTTEN: THE STUDENT WORKERS IN CHINA FRANCE – Genevieve Barman & Nicole Dulioust – here.

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So, the French were in full production – whilst the British were still at the ‘planning stage’.

Ernest Bell’s magazine – The Animals’ Friend – 1913

Vegetarian Milk

Flesh-eaters seem likely to lose another of their favourite arguments – the one which humane dietists call the “cock and bull” argument – namely, that we must keep cows for their milk, and bull calves will be born, so they might as well be killed and eaten. The daily papers have been telling us lately that……

An artificial milk, manufactured from vegetables, which is said to contain all the elements of the best cow’s milk, and can be used for the same purposes, has been invented, and was shown to a gathering of scientists in London. Among those present were Sir William Crookes, representatives of the Home Office and the Local Government Board, several medical officers of health, and other members of the medical profession.

The milk is said to be more digestible than ordinary milk, and its cream is far more nourishing. It can be used for all cooking purposes, and very good cheese can be made from it, but it will not produce butter. As the milk is germ-free, it will keep longer than cow’s milk.

The principal vegetables used in the manufacture of the milk are Soya beans – Japanese and Chinese beans – and it will yield a certain profit sold at 3d. a quart. Cheese could be produced at 3d a pound. It is proposed later to form a company and erect factories for the manufacture of the milk.

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