Rice

Worldwide, rice is the second most important cereal after maize. It's the primary cereal for human consumption of the tropical regions, but is also grown in some temperate regions with a warmer climate. For half the world's popukation rice is the main staple food.

This page provides some basic information and facts about rice, together with some photos and some rice proverbs and quotes.

Basic information and facts on rice

Scientific name:	Oryza sativa

Family:	Poaceae
Order:	Poales

English:	Rice
Dutch:	Rijst
French:	Riz
Spanish:	Arroz
German:	Reis
Italian:	Riso

Subspecies:	Rice has two major subspecies which are called Japonica and Indica. Japonica is a sticky, short grained type of rice, usually cultivated in dry fields. Indica is non-sticky and long-grained type of rice and is mostly grown in submerged fields. Both types have many different varieties.

Origin:	Rice has its origin in Asia. The Indica type originates from eastern India, Myanmar and Thailand. The Japonica type come from southern China.
Distribution:	Rice is the main staple food for many people in East and South Asia, Middle East, Latin America, West Indies. It is grown throughout the tropics with main production in China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.

Plant:	Rice is a domesticated plant belonging to the family of the grasses. It is usually grown as an annual plant, but in the tropics it can be grown as a perennial. A rice plant starts as a seedling (one stem) but because of tillering during the vegetative stage, the plant will eventually produce many stems (tillers) which each can produce a panicle with seeds.
Flowers:	At the tip of the stem the rice plant develops a panicle, which may contain up to 200 flowers, each producing a rice seed. As the plant has many tillers, one plant can produce thousands of seeds.
Grains:	Rice grains are usually 5 to 12 mm long and 2 to 3 mm wide, depending on the variety.
Climate and weather:	Rice prefers a tropical or warm climate, with a lot of rainfall. But if irrigation water is available rice can also be grown in drier areas or during dry season.
Pollination:	Rice is usually a self-pollinating plant, but cross pollination by wind is possible.
Height:	Depending on the variety and soil, rice plants are usually between 1 and 1.8 meter tall.
Type of soil:	Rice is usually grown on heavier soils that have a good water holding capacity.
Growth rate:	Some short duration rice varieties can mature in 100 days. but medium and long-duration varieties require 130 to 150 days.
Spacing (close range)	20x20 cm. This is the distance that seedlings are transplanted (often 2 or 3 seedlings together).
Spacing (wide range)	25x25 cm
Propagation:	Rice is grown from seed. It can either be sown in a seedbed, followed by transplanting after a period of 20-40 days, or it can be broadcasted. Transplanting is labor intensive, but has the advantage of plants growing in rows which facilitates weeding.
Insect pests:	Quite a number of insects are known to attack rice including the brown planthopper, rice gall midge, rice bug, rice leafroller, rice weevils and stemborer.
Diseases:	Rice has several bacterial and fungal diseases that can reduce its productivity. Common diseases are bacterial blight, bacterial leaf streak, sheath blight, tungro, rice blast, and brown spot disease.
Grain development:	The grain filling stage can be separated in a 'milky stage' ( a milky white substance accumulates in the seed), a dough stage (the milky substance changes and looks like bread dough), and the 'maturity stage' (when the grain is firm).
Harvesting:	Grain is harvested by cutting the stems, followed by threshing to separate the seed from the husks. In large scale rice production combine harvester machines are used.
Brown versus white:	Brown rice is unmilled rice of which only the husk has been removed. White rice is milled rice that has had its husk, bran, and germ removed. It is polished after milling, which gives the seed a bright white and shiny appearance. Brown and white rice are similar in amounts of calories, carbohydrates, and protein. However, brown rice is more nutritious because the bran and germ contain several vitamins and dietary minerals.
Uses:	Most rice is eaten as a staple food, usually boiled, sometimes first boiled and then fried. Rice flour (rice powder) is used as a thinkening agent or to rice noddles or desserts. Rice can also be used to make alcoholic drinks such as rice wine.

Rice photos

Proverbs about rice

You can never sow rice and expect to harvest maize.
Better than a banquet somewhere else is a good cup of tea and a bowl of rice at home.
Even though you tread slowly over your rice field it will become muddy.
You can't eat the rice cake in the picture.
One bee makes no honey; one grain makes no rice soup.
If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.
For rice cakes, go to the rice-cake maker.
Without rice, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook.
Cold tea and cold rice are bearable, but cold looks and cold words are not.
Apple blossoms are beautiful, but rice dumplings are better.
Growing rice gives you more than poetry will.
Talk doesn't cook rice.
A pig used to dirt turns its nose up at rice.
Luck is like having a rice dumpling fly into your mouth.

Quotes about rice

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start. (Mother Teresa)
Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling. (Dave Berry)
A diet that consists predominantly of rice leads to the use of opium, just as a diet that consists predominantly of potatoes leads to the use of liquor. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Rice is a beautiful food. It is beautiful when it grows, precision rows of sparkling green stalks shooting up to reach the hot summer sun. It is beautiful when harvested, autumn gold sheaves piled on diked, patchwork paddies. It is beautiful when, once threshed, it enters granary bins like a (flood) of tiny seed-pearls. It is beautiful when cooked by a practiced hand, pure white and sweetly fragrant. (Shizuo Tsuji)

Did you know that?

There are many varieties of rice. Many are white, but rice can have many different colors, including: white, brown, black, red and purple.
Rice farming started probably around 5000 BC.
Rice is thrown to newly married couples as a symbol of fertility and to bring them luck.
Rice is the staple food of half the world's population.
Parboiled rice is rice that it is steamed under pressure before it is milled. This process makes the grain harder and helps maintaining several important vitamins and minerals.
Rice in a husk is called 'paddy', and rice fields are often called paddy fields.

Recipes

No rice recipe yet :(