Rice

Rice is something that I've come to appreciate the complexity of since living in Indonesia. Honestly, this is something that is central to life here, and not just for rice farmers, but EVERYONE. Most people EAT rice three times a day! Not to mention the economic impact, and subtleties of rice imports and exports (there are some funny trade agreement games, which basically amount to the fact that Indonesia is importing and exporting the SAME amount of rice... duh?) In fact, rice is so important here, there is a different word for each phase it goes through!

This is padi (the rice plant, still in the field) in the sawah (the rice field, which WE know as rice paddys... hmmm... maybe there was a problem in translation somewhere in history!?):



This is beras (un-cooked rice):




and THIS is nasi (cooked and ready-to-eat; notice the side-dish dollop of sambal - super-hot fresh chili paste... no Indonesian meal is complete without it):



and THIS is nasi goreng (fried rice with bits of yummy goodness - Martin's favourite):




The terraced sawah in Toraja, South Sulawesi make for beautiful scenery:



I used to love to eat rice in Canada... now... well, it's certainly not something I consider a specialty anymore... but I'm used to eating it daily (I stop at once... not THREE times a day!).


... oh, and of course, my mom reminded me that there was one kind of rice I hadn't mentioned in this post... FREE RICE! If this link isn't working, you can just type in www.freerice.com to go to the highly-addictive (newly expanded) online word game, sponsored by the UN.