A Rice Landscape

In this opening section, there is something to be said not just about rice as a food but also about other aspects of this extraordinary plant: its origins, its life-cycle and cultivation, its power over the lives of those who live by it. To enjoy rice, it helps to know how to shop for it as well as how to cook it. We ought to understand what it offers us as a food. And to appreciate rice fully, we need to have some idea of its status in different countries today, and of how it came to be where it is.