Vietnamese cuisine is mostly dairy-free by default, at least the traditional recipes anyway.  Prior to French colonization, dairy wasn’t really a thing in Vietnam.  Most of our traditional recipes use coconut milk in lieu of cow milk.  That’s not because we’re some sort of New Age vegan hippies.  It has to do with the country’s climate and available resources.

In short: cows are scarce resources, whereas coconut trees grow wild everywhere.  Coconut trees are flood and wind tolerant, cows are not.  That’s very important for a country that regularly experiences flood and typhoon.  Additionally, most Vietnamese are lactose intolerant, like the rest of people of Asian descents.

So when I post a Vietnamese dessert recipe, you can rest assure that it’s dairy free.  And that’s not because I’m vegan.  It’s because I don’t know any other way to make it.