Rice Rant

Japanese people ask me about rice. A lot. Yes, I eat it. No, it doesn’t present any problems. To be honest, I’ve never considered whether rice is better than bread and I think it’s a stupid question. Japanese rice is definitely better suited to Japanese food than, say, basmati, but it’s not the only good rice in the world, mmmkay? Earlier this spring I went on a couple of dates with a Japanese man who had lived in Europe for 15 years. On BOTH evenings he felt the need to tell me that Japanese rice is the best rice in the world, apparently because it still tastes good cold. I can see it coming up once, maybe, when we’re discussing food in Europe, or expat habits, but both times? And what is the point of telling someone Japanese rice is the best? Hoping we foreigners will abandon our ignorant foreign-rice eating ways?

Just last week in the elevator I bumped into a Japanese German teacher who for some reason teaches in the English Department. She eyed the bento in my hand curiously so I showed it to her. It was standard cafeteria fare: a breaded, fried croquette, rice, some vegetables, a piece of chicken. She asked me whether I thought I’d enjoy it and I said I would be happier if there were more vegetables. But that wasn’t really what she wanted to know. “But at home you eat bread more than rice, don’t you?” I sighed inside. “No, I eat a lot of rice at home, too.” “Oh, really? Not potatoes?” (I have a German last name). Even though I’m four generations removed from the old country, it seems inconceivable that I might actually eat Asian food at home.

I feel so embarrassed for people when they ask me things like this. It's not like it's the Meiji Era and I'm the first foreigner to hit the ground. The country has been open since 1858. When I lived in Tokyo I was only asked once about the rice vs. bread debate (as if there is one), and that was by a man in his eighties whose tiny, adorable wife, named Plum, had invited me to their house for a lemonade after a neighborhood festival. In Kansai, however, it seems like it’s rice all the time (though I might be a little biased at this point). A couple of weeks ago the local news had a brief interview with a woman who had been “stranded” an extra week in Europe because of the Icelandic volcano. She said she was glad to be home because she missed eating rice. I understand that people love it, I do.

Once, ten years ago, my boyfriend and I went to a resort on the Sea of Japan for our one-year anniversary. They served a gorgeous meal in our tatami room with a view of the ocean. The inn was in Niigata, famous for the taste of its rice. My fellow had three or four helpings of rice -- whole bowls -- and proceeded to pass out at 8 pm in a rice bliss. Not the romantic evening I had imagined (shakes fist at rice).

Someday I will address the notion of the supremely healthy Japanese diet. But for now let me say the glutinous coating they put on rice is allegedly tied to the country’s high rate of stomach cancer. Speaking of rice, why is there brown rice tea everywhere, but almost no brown rice? You want healthy? There’s healthy: brown rice—even better, brown basmati. And I might eat more bread than I do here if it wasn’t all bleached sugary tasteless wonder-fluff. I’ve never seen people eat more bread than Japanese people in a buffet line (called Viking here, apparently because they ate so much). Just because the rolls are small doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to eat 10 of them. We actually had to put a two-roll limit on our students when they were in U.S. hotels.

Postscript: Tonight I went to an Indian restaurant. I ordered a Goan prawn curry and asked for basmati rice. But they didn’t have it because Japanese customers won’t eat it. I wiped my tears with garlic naan.