Rice Family

Ages and ages ago, I sat in on a cooking class my friend Rose Hollander taught. Demonstrating a handful of recipes that were integral to her time in Singapore, she also gave this informational tidbit that has always stuck with me—in many parts of Asia, the traditional greeting translates to “Have you eaten rice today?” Imagine a comestible so much a part of a culture that it opens every conversation. Imagine an ingredient so important that it travels from its place of origin, in this case the Chinese Yangtze River Basin, to the Indian subcontinent to the Italian Po River Valley and then on to the Americas.