🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2015@aegis.or.jp> davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:

   When I returned last May from a trip to California to visit my
   daughter and latest grandchild, I brought 55 plastic bags each
   containing one cup of California rice back to Japan and gave them to
   people so they could have a taste of what has been the cause of so
   much controversy lately. This is a report on what I found out. 

   Getting the rice to Japan. When my daughter went on her weekly 
   -------------------------  shopping trip to Lucky Supermarket in 
   Whittier, CA, I tagged along and found there were three kinds of 
   rice: First there was the usual "Uncle Ben's" long grain rice.
   Second, there was some kind of rice for the many Hispanic people
   who live in the area. Third there was Shirakiku, The labeling on
   the front was in English where it said "Calrose Rice packed for
   Nishimoto Trading Co. Ltd. Los Angeles and San Francisco. No talc
   added." On the back it said "Shi-ra-ki-ku-ma-i" in Japanese printed
   vertically.

I think that the rice used in Uncle Ben's comes from Arkansas or
Louisiana or maybe Texas. It is genuine "American" style rice. No wonder
rice isn't very popular over here! :-)

There are several different brands of "California" rice for sale in
Japanese (and other Asian) Grociers here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I personally prefer Nishiki. But I think most of them are grown in the
Central Valley area of California.

   However long discussions arose starting with how sticky the rice
   was and it turned out that people I spoke with cook rice quite
   differently. Everybody washed the rice and then put it in rice
   cooker, but soaking before cooking varied between 1/2 an hour and
   12 hours. People felt the soaking time affected the stickiness.

My understanding is that rices stickiness is related to it's gluten
content. Mochi rice has lots of gluten. I think maybe Uncle Ben's has a
negative amount so that the individual grains actually repel each other.
Is it possible that soaking the rice breaks down the gluten?

   Next comes the question of the age of the rice. Was it shi-n-ma-i
   (new rice), ko-ma-i (old rice), or ko-ko-ma-i (old old rice which
   people said they never ate).

Every year the rice companies with Japanese names announce when this
year's shinmai is available in markets, so I would guess that for the
most part rice you buy here is less than a year old.

Mark Dyer		English: markd@tdd.sj.nec.com
NEC America, Inc.	 $BF|K\8l(B: markd@csl.sj.nec.com

When I lived in Japan, my friends called me $B5H30?M(B.($B$-$A$,$$$8$s(B)
I'm still not sure if it was a complement or not.