White basmati rice

A long-grain rice, white as snow with a hint of musk – this is the ultimate grain for Indians. I have to start here. I was brought up to see this grain as a minor god. Seriously. In India, you are cursed if you throw a single grain of rice away. I have enduring images of my mother rummaging through the bin after a dinner party, cussing and growling at the Philistine waste, scooping out the grains and putting them aside for her chickens.

More than that, culturally in the East, life is punctuated with rice ceremonies, like the first meal of a child in India, the ‘Rice in the Mouth’ celebration. Rice features as reverently as a priest at wedding ceremonies, religious ceremonies, even funeral ceremonies. I remember balls of rice being formed like matryoshka dolls at my father’s funeral – each one representing one of his ancestors – in descending order of size.