Plastic wrap is so cool! Thanks so much for posting that. I tried it tonight for the first time for pizza crust and it worked so much better than anything else I’ve ever tried.
The more I think about white rice the more I think it at one time was a great technology. Brown rice in hot humid areas would go rancid and be difficult to eat. Along comes white rice that could be stored for years and be kept in reserve in times before refrigeration. The extra processing removes a lot of fiber and nutrients, but it also preserves it. Some preservation techniques have died out like salt pork, others are so common they are not even thought about like dried grapes, white rice seems to have become the default even though the processing is not really needed as much as in the past.
One twist to the interpretation of “need” might be the cultural one. Take for instance those cuisines (Lao and Japanese, for two) that have an expectation of stickier short-grained dining rice; your everyday diner would be at a loss with unmilled or even parboiled rices, which apparently are also less sticky after the process. And long-grain? Fuggeddabouddit. Never mind it’s not sticky, it doesn’t even taste the same. Centuries of culture can be pretty tough to change. It would probably take a disaster of sweeping proportions for changes like that to take place and alter a cultural “landscape”.
I would call that a want not a need. People do not need to smoke pork to preserve it anymore, yet ham and bacon are still a desired food product. People do not need to prepare whitefish in lye to preserve it, yet people still love the gelatinous yet tough delicacy. Many survival foods outlived their purpose and now only function form and function. Many of the techniques that were to preserve are now so diluted and deformed that they only serve form and have lost their function.
To put it another way, it would be like buying canned food that needed to be refrigerated because the presentation and look of the can was desired, but it no longer served its past function.
Well, I’m curious. Let’s go with your idea of need in the more absolute sense, then. If polished rice is not needed, then how is this so? In terms of storage, I imagine that you’re aware that the words “Laotian” and “refrigeration” are almost galaxies apart, indeed for much of the rural Third World that consumes rice as a staple. Africa also comes to mind. Supposing you could even get them to switch over to a diet of brown rice - good luck trying in any meaningful measure on that one, for tastes and habits aside, brown rice uses more precious water than white, and twice the time, to cook it - tons of rice would go bad. Or am I missing something, something that you didn’t mention?
Now, rice bran pickling is one way to incorporate the bran nutrients into other foods, but again, while it’s a good solution, it’s a culture-specific item. Personally, I don’t like takuan pickles at all. Don’t know if I ever will. I’ve tried often enough.
I was thinking specifically the US. Heck even in outstate Minnesota I have had my share of brown rice that has gone bad due to lack of refrigeration and sitting on store shelves for way to long. I even thought that the unique rancid flavor of brown rice was what it was suppose to taste like until I moved to the cities and was able to try “fresh” brown rice. I guess I would say that where it is not a necessity it still would be the first choice due to aesthetics, and that it hasn’t lost its function everywhere (me and my sweeping generalizations).
There is probably good reason that Thai people conciser brown rice suitable for only prisoners and livestock…
At least the convicts have better nutrition in the rice end of their diet than the general populace. I’m sure it’s not a huge consolation.
Being resistant to spoilage and therefore bad flavors might be a big factor in why white rice was at one time considered food for the ruling classes. It’s been a long time since I had brown rice, but I don’t recall an off-flavor. I must have been lucky. How would you compare the flavor of spoiled vs. unspoiled brown rice, I.D.10-t?
Turn over for rice is most likely much higher here than grocery stores in towns less than 5,000. Chances are you have never had really old brown rice.
The flavor is just a heavy, thick, off flavor, like any oil or fat like butter that has been left to sit out too long. It is not something that cannot be covered up with spices, but we eat most of our rice fairly plain. I think the last rice side dish I made was some black jasmine rice with olive oil, pine nuts and currents*. Not much to cover any off tastes. Thanks to our grocery store’s bulk containers, we usually don’t buy more than we will use in a week. It seems to make a difference.
White long grain and basmati? Pour into a mason jar, throw them on the shelf and forget about them until needed.
*Wow that sounds like pretentious yuppie food.
Not to me if it’s fairly inexpensive. Sounds like good nutrition. Let’s call it…“Earth cuisine”.
That is a great thing about rice, even the fancy stuff is inexpensive for what you get.
Obviously hasn’t made home made cheese.
Coagulation occurs at the curdling stage (the cottage cheese juncture) - no rotten smell there mate.
The weird smells come after and have nothing to do with coagulation.
By coincidence I ran across this today.
http://washokufood.blogspot.com/2009/11/akagai-ark-clam.html
“the Illness of Edo”, Edo disease
beriberi; vitamin B deficiency
. . . . . kakke 脚気(かっけ)Toward the 18th century, this mysterious disease started as an affliction of the rich and wealthy, who could afford to eat polished rice, which let to vitamin B deficiency.
Poor townspeople in Edo, who ate brown rice, did not get it, also the poor in the countryside.
Even the 8th Shogun Yoshimune suffered from it for a while, until his cooks gave him a sidedish with the ark clam in miso-vinegar. The ark clam contains a lot of vitamin B.
Once the Tokugawa Shogun established the government in Edo (the former name for Tokyo,) the city attracted people and merchants, drawn to the new capital. Edo is thought to have been the largest city in the world at that time. There was a saying at the time that “Fires and brawls are the flowers of Edo.” Vast numbers of people migrated into the city as workers.
The new arrivals were poor but healthy while Edokko or people who had lived in the town for several generations were suffering from “Edo Wazurai,” or beriberi. Soba turned out to be the prevention and cure, the secret that had protected the newcomers.
How long does it take? My wife and I buy big bags of brown rice in the Asian supermarket when we visit the big city. I’m sure it’s fresh there, since they stock it by the pallet. We had been storing it in a big plastic tub, but it got moths in it, so the new protocol is to put it into plastic bags and store it in the refrigerator.
As far as the cultural aspects, it’s just food. There’s a strong cultural bias for bland, fatty, food in my Scottish heritage, but I’ve taken to both brown rice and hot peppers. There’s no cultural bias for hamburgers in many parts of the world, but McDonalds seems to do well anyway…
No clue on time frame and I would think it climate would have something to do with it. One year seems to be the longest we would store it (but don’t dismiss the chance that all this might be in my head). As for bugs, I believe that overnight in the freezer should kill any eggs/bugs/ whatever and after that normal storage in a sealed container is fine.
This was new 5 gallon pail with a tight plastic lid (with rubber gasket). Those darned moths seem to be able to get into anything. I’ve just learned to keep all grain and grain products in the fridge.
Last night I cooked up some veggies and added a can of tikka masala sauce. After it had simmered I added it to a bag of (cooked) whole-grain brown rice pasta http://www.tinkyada.com/
Very nice. The sauce is made in North Carolina has the words “gluten free” on the back. I forget the name. I wanted to make some rice, but the rice takes 40 minutes and I didn’t want to wait that long. Whenever I cook the rice I always make twice as much so there will be leftovers!
Thanks for the interesting info on Edo wazurai, I.D.10-t. It sent me a-Googling, and I found out about haigamai (“half-milled” rice) and kinmemai (“partially-milled” rice). The sources seem to agree that after the more general adoption of milling for food rice (in the 17th century if that is correct, and more recent than I would have thought!) these were the historically predominant consumption rices for the average nonfarming populace in Japan up until the Meiji era when fine milling became more economical, and moreover that those partly-milled rices remain popular, but when I was there I never once saw or ate either one or even heard them mentioned, so I don’t know what “popular” is supposed to mean exactly.
I don’t remember who it was – I think Alan King or Robert Klein – once said, “Sour cream has an expiration date. What happens then, does it go good?”