Rice

Farmed for almost 7000 years, it is a founding grain that has long sustained some of the most populous parts of our planet. There are estimated to be some 40,000 varieties of rice, typically classified by size and texture, such as long, medium and short-grained, and by their strain, such as white, brown, red, black or purple.

In Asian countries, particularly, this tiny grain is revered as a source of sustenance and a giver of life. Friendships can be made and lost over a humble bowl of rice, a simple foodstuff consumed in nightly dinners and celebrated in holy holidays and festivals.