Wild About Rice Rice always seems so simple and ordinary and simple to most Americans like myself. But when I talk to my friend, who is asian, one never talks about how rice tastes or what you can do with rice in the kitchen. She says things like, how can you eat without rice or who will put the rice on your table, ie. who brings home the bacon.
Rice takes on a whole new meaning, one in which a culture older than any on earth revolves around.
In a chinese house the rice is always washed, rinsed five or six times until the water is clear and in some traditional provinces, the water from this is saved and used to wash the wok. The rice starched water degreases the wok and keeps it from rusting avoiding the necessity of re-seasoning the wok. The rice water in the Philippines has also been used as a whitening agent for laundry in days not very long ago. And in a pinch, rice can be formed into a paste to make a glue that rivals Elmer's. Rice has traveled the world and although not as mythologized as it is in Asia, it's use in the cuisines of the world is at the top of the food chain.