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We’re back this month with our second blog about rice and the deep relationship we, as a human race, have with this amazing grain. Rice is grown all over the world, existing in many shapes, colors, sizes and flavors.

As we wrote last month, the rice plant is a type of grass, which produces fruit that ripens into grains of rice. When ready, the plants are harvested, dried and threshed, which results in unrefined rice grains that are separated from the plant stems and leaves. The unrefined grains go on to be cleaned, polished and packaged before they are used to create the many dishes that human societies all over the world relies on for nutrition and sustenance.

During the processing phase, rice grains are generally grouped by their origins, and then by size (short, medium or long grain), by the color of the refined grain (white, purple, red or black) and by its texture (loose or sticky). The initial de-husking removes the outer hull surrounding the rice grain, exposing the bran. The bran is either left on the rice—resulting in brown rice if the inner grain is white—or the bran is removed, which leaves the inner grain exposed for polishing, resulting in white rice. Colored rice varieties, like red and black, can be eaten with or without their bran covering.

Short grain white rice

Short-grain rice is the most common type used in Japanese cuisine, giving it the broad classification Japonica. (By contrast, long grain rice is categorized as Indica.) These grains are almost round in appearance, and typically less than 5mm long and 2.5 mm wide. These varieties require less water to cook and generally result in starchy or sticky rice. The short grain rice used in Japanese cooking is called uruchi mai, and while there are hundreds of varieties available, popular ones include koshihikari, hitomebore, akitakomachi and sasanishiki. These rice varieties have sweet, nutty flavors, ranging from sticky to loose and plump in texture, and are used to make sushi rice and served as an accompaniment to a meal. Mochi gome, also known as glutinous or sweet rice, is another type of extra-sticky, opaque, short-grain Japanese rice that is used to make mochi, a sweet delicacy with a chewy texture. All of these short grain rice varieties have been produced for decades (if not hundreds of years!) and grace the table of Japanese people across the globe.

Stay tuned for next month’s post about medium-grain rice and check out some of our favorite rice recipes online… especially this one for mochi!

Rice is an integral part of human food culture–no matter where in the world you travel, rice is eaten in homes and restaurants, as main courses and as snacks, by rich and poor.

Our deep relationship with rice dates back to almost 10,000 BCE, where the rice plant that we know even to this day, Oryza sativa, was domesticated from its wild progenitor, Oryza rufipogon. A grass that produces a flower and a grain, the domestication and annual planting of rice originally occurred in the Pearl River Valley region of China, along the mid-Yangtze River. Cultivation, tools and techniques spread down the Yangtze River and the Huai River over the next 2,000 years, and were shared with India, Sri Lanka, Japan, and countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea as both trade and conflict comingled cultures. Transfer and cultivation in the Americas began during the European Age of Exploration, and in modern times, rice is grown on all continents except for Antarctica.

The rice plant, while hearty, only produces a crop once in areas with abundant water. In arid zones, the plant survives as a perennial, producing new tillers following harvesting. It is a small semiaquatic grass, comprised of a main stem and multiple tillers, or shoots, that produce either a flower or panicle. The plant matures in stages over 3-6 months, from the vegetative state, to the reproductive state, to the ripening state.

The plant is initially germinated from the seeds of unrefined, unprocessed rice. Roots and shoots sprout from the seed, the order depending on what type of soil the seed has been planted in. Wet conditions will see the growth of the shoot first, so that oxygen can be supplied to the plant, whereas in dry conditions, roots will emerge so that the plant will have a healthy supply of water. During the vegetative state, the plant stem grows, becoming strong enough to support tillers – branches that grow from the main plant stem to bear grain–and leaves, which multiply every 3-4 days.

The rice plant becomes ready to reproduce about 2 ½ months after sowing, when a panicle begins to form. The panicle, which bears the fruit (in this case, the rice grain), pushes through the leaves and as it fully emerges, produces a flower that can be pollinated. The grains ripen over the next three months, and when ready to harvest, the entire plant is picked from the soil.

Rice plants are lightly dried in the sun following rainy conditions or after harvest, and are threshed to remove the stems and leaves from the grains. The unprocessed, unrefined grains go on to be cleaned, polished and packaged before they are used to create the many dishes human society all over the world relies on for nutrition and sustenance.

Rice is such an integral part of the Zojirushi community, that we’ve planned a series of posts about this incredibly versatile and important plant. Stay tuned for next month’s post about the types of rice grains and how rice goes from the seed of the rice plant to the grain you find in your market.

Tag Archives: food

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