Such headlines! And why not, eating is the daily news! Having left off with the promise of explaining various varieties of rice, and in the quest for the most basic and fundamental, let’s start with some rice anatomy.
If you are still paying attention and would like a little drawing to go along with this, return to the wiki site: Rice. You will see a drawing of a grain of rice. Once harvested, rice, with only the outer layer (the chaff) removed, is brown rice. The very same rice, processed differently, with both the bran and germ removed, becomes white rice. Because the brown rice has the germ and bran intact, it is chewier and has more flavor and nutrients. White rice cooks more quickly than brown because the outer layers have been removed.
Wild rice (the long black stuff in this illustration) really isn’t rice at all. It’s actually the seed of an aquatic grass that is related to the rice plant. Kind of like the odd cousin that shows up at family events, wild rice is often seen in the company of (either in boxes or bins or even cooked-with) regular rice. Wild rice can be quite expensive and cooking it along with brown rice is a way of maintaining the acquaintance without breaking the bank.
“Varieties”, you ask? Beyond the brown/white thing, there are also long grain and short grain varieties. Indica, the long grain type, tends to produce separate grains when cooked. Japonica, the short grain type, produces rice with round grains that tend to stick together (Why do I keep thinking of family dynamics? Time to appreciate the differences!). Both are lovely in their own way, but because rice is often cooked to accompany another dish, it’s nice to know how each particular variety is going to get along with the rest of the edible attendees!
Enough information for one day? This stuff is supposed to be offered in ‘small bites’, so stay tuned (yet again) for more rice-y news.
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