Thinking about Old Rice, Indica Rice, and the 'Ideal Society'

If you're going to make fried rice, look for a rice shop with few customers.

There is a saying by the master of Chinese cuisine, Liu Fanchao: 'If you're going to make fried rice, look for a rice shop with few customers.' In short, it means, 'If you're going to make fried rice, you should use old rice.'

You might say, 'It's common knowledge to make fried rice with old rice,' but well, for me, it's the discovery of the century, so I'd like you to hear it.

It is an undeniable fact that 'fried rice made with old rice is delicious.' In fact, in my home, we keep old rice separate from new rice and cook it specifically for fried rice.

Old rice, that is, rice that has been harvested for more than a year or two, compared to new rice, has a worse smell, becomes harder, and loses the stickiness unique to Japanese rice.

The 'delicious rice' that Japanese people prefer has an image of being moist, sticky, and fluffy. Of course, I think so too. When I'm preparing dinner and the rice is cooked fluffy, that alone makes me happy.

However, this actually gets in the way when making fried rice.

Because of the stickiness, it's hard to get the light, fluffy texture that makes fried rice delicious, and it's difficult to coat each grain of rice with flavor. The rice often remains in clumps, resulting in a mushy texture.

On the other hand, using old rice significantly reduces that worry. When eating it as white rice, the lack of stickiness is a bit... but in the case of fried rice, that actually becomes an advantage. Since the rice itself has less moisture, it's less likely to turn out mushy.

In other words, you don't have to use very difficult techniques to make it fluffy on its own, so you might even feel like your fried rice-making skills have improved.

And that unique smell that bothers you when you think about eating old rice as white rice? Perhaps because it's masked by oil when made into fried rice, it becomes surprisingly unnoticeable.

Therefore, making fried rice with old rice makes sense.

If you have old rice at home that has lost its flavor, or if a situation like the one a while ago where 'rice couldn't be obtained' happens again.

I highly recommend trying to make fried rice. You will surely be surprised, thinking, 'Huh? Isn't this delicious?'

Think about the feelings of Indica rice too.

By the way, I still remember the 'Heisei Rice Riots' that occurred in 1993. It seems that this year was a very poor harvest for rice, and a situation occurred where rice disappeared from stores.

So, as a desperate measure, the government decided to import rice from overseas in an emergency. What became a hot topic at that time was 'Indica rice,' which was called 'Thai rice' at the time.

Indica rice (Thai rice) is a so-called long-grain variety, with a long, thin shape, no stickiness, and is light and fluffy.

This Thai rice was very unpopular at the time. I remember it was unpopular, with people saying things like, 'It's dry and not delicious,' or 'It has a smell that doesn't seem like rice.'

Of course, I understand the feelings of the people who were complaining. Since something completely different from the rice they always ate was being sold as 'rice,' they would naturally be surprised and want to complain.

However, this is none of Indica rice's business. Indica rice is delicious when made into pilaf or fried rice, and when paired with slightly oily side dishes from Southeast Asia, including Thailand, it exhibits explosive deliciousness.

Moreover, Indica rice is usually not cooked like Japanese rice; it is often boiled in a pot, and all the water is drained off to finish it. It feels like, if you cook such rice in a Japanese rice cooker and call it 'bad,' well...

At the time, I thought, 'No, try putting yourself in the Indica rice's shoes.' It was brought to Japan in a hurry because they said there was a 'rice shortage,' thrown into an unfamiliar environment (a rice cooker), cooked in a way that doesn't bring out its best qualities, and then, to top it all off, called 'bad.' It's just too much to bear.

I think things like this must be happening in the world.

Just as there are delicious ways to cook Indica rice, every single person must surely have a 'cooking method' that suits them. Yet, they are stuffed into the rice cooker (a metaphor) called a 'company,' unable to demonstrate their strengths, and branded as 'useless.'

I think there must be many people in the world who feel, 'This is just too much to bear.'

Instead of dismissing old rice as 'not delicious,' make it into fried rice to let it fully demonstrate its merits. Instead of cooking Indica rice in a rice cooker and complaining that it's 'bad,' learn a delicious cooking method and combine it with side dishes that suit Indica rice.

I want to be that kind of person, and if possible, I hope that society can be that way for people as well.

By the way... the words of Liu Fanchao, a master of the Chinese culinary world, mentioned at the beginning: 'If you're going to make fried rice, look for a rice shop with few customers.'

This is, of course, a big lie.

I have never heard such words, and there is no such person as Liu Fanchao, a master of the Chinese culinary world. I am just saying it on my own.

Well, I think many of you suspected it was somewhat fishy from the moment I used a name like 'Liu Fanchao' while talking about fried rice, but just in case.