In the European Union, soy milk legally cannot be called milk
A German consumer group took a tofu company to Europe's top court, and in 2017 the judges agreed: purely plant-based drinks may not be sold as milk, even with soy stuck in front. It is a strange fate for a drink Chinese street vendors were hawking for breakfast by the 1700s.
Soy milk starts with soaked, ground soybeans that are boiled and then strained, leaving a stable mix of oil, water and protein. Originally it was simply a step on the way to tofu. In parts of China, the thin traditional liquid is doujiang, bean broth, while shop-bought versions made to mimic dairy are more often called bean milk and may even contain cow's milk.
The oldest evidence is a carved stone slab from the Eastern Han dynasty showing soy milk being prepared in a kitchen. A tofu broth appears under the Mongol Yuan around 1365, and the great pharmacological compendium completed in 1578 assesses soy milk. Consumption grew in the Qing era, apparently after cooks learned that warming it gently for 90 minutes or more broke down sugars that cause wind and stomach pain. By the nineteenth century people brought cups to tofu shops for a hot morning serving, often dunking fried youtiao dough.
Industry followed. By 1929 two Shanghai factories each sold more than 1,000 bottles a day. In 1910 Li Yuying opened the first soy dairy, at Colombes in France, and he won British and American patents in 1912 and 1913. After the disruption of war, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan began selling it like a soft drink in the 1950s.
The naming fight is old too. The American dairy industry and the Department of Agriculture pushed Harry W. Miller, who had moved his factory out of Shanghai during the Second World War, to sell Soya Lac instead of soy milk. John Harvey Kellogg, who had been making what he called soymilk at Battle Creek since 1930, had to market his version as Soygal from 1942. EU law now reserves milk for mammary secretions, with named animals and exceptions like coconut milk.
Source: Soy milk
