101 methods of cooking rice

Let's now take a gastronomical journey, to explore the versatility of rice as an ingredient, and how the variations of a particular rice dish can illustrate the distinctiveness and connectivity of cultures. There are various methods to cooking rice, from boiling to steaming to stir-frying. Within each method, there are also variations, some of which are native to certain areas in SEA. Take steaming for example. Modernized households in Kuala Lumpur may use electronic rice cookers to cook their rice, while their more rural counterparts in Kelantan use bamboo rice cookers. In this respect, we can see that even the method of cooking can demonstrate differences in culture and social status. With Singapore being a relatively modernized state, most of us may not be familiar with the method of bamboo rice cooking. In a nutshell, the rice is wrapped in a banana leaf that is then stuffed into a bamboo chamber, which is placed upright in hot coal. The chamber is filled with water, which will boil when the coal heats up. Alternatively, the rice can be directly stuffed into the bamboo in the absence of banana leaves. Beside the versatility of rice with regards to the methods of cooking it, the dishes with rice as a main ingredient are boundless. Today, we’ll focus our attention on rice dumplings, a dish that can be found in many part of SEA, but varies between countries and cultures.

A popular dessert among the Chinese would be that of “Tang Yuan” (Rice dumplings in Sweet Ginger Soup). Made of glutinous rice flour, the dough is stuffed with red bean, black sesame or peanuts, and served in a bowl of sweet ginger soup. “Che Troi Nuoc”, a dessert found in Vietnam, is also a dish with rice dumplings served in sweet ginger soup. The preparation method of the latter is similar, with glutinous rice dough being used to wrap blended stuffing. With the Chinese forming the largest ethnic minority in Vietnam (Wikipedia, 2007), a cultural bridge has hence been formed between external influences (China in this case) and Vietnam. As such, it comes as no surprise that certain Vietnamese food reflect Chinese influences. However, as similar as “Che Troi Nuoc” is to “Tang Yuan”, there are certain ingredients that distinguish them from one another, one of which is coconut milk that is mixed into to the soup of the Vietnamese version. Like many other Southeast Asian countries, Vietnamese cuisine uses coconut milk very often, while Chinese cuisine seldom uses it.

This supports the postulations of symbolic interactionists, who theorizes that “people help to create their social circumstances and do not merely react to them” (Bryme & Lie, 2007). In the words of Erla Zwingle, “when cultures [Vietnem] receive outside influences [China], they ignore some and adopt others, and then almost immediately start to transform them” (National Geographic, 2000). Through the process of glocalisation, the Vietnamese altered a dish to fit its local palate and taste. With this blending of internal and external influences, a hybrid culture emerged. As such, with globalisation and people symbolically interacting with their environment, can we say a nation or society has their very own original culture? We feel that this is however not really an issue because despite being influenced by external sources, hybrid cultures are distinctive in itself. It is highly unlikely that the receiving group will interpret and adopt a particular cultural feature in the same fashion as the influential group. It is this difference in interpretation and adoption that results in the creole culture becoming distinctive and original to that country or society.

Above, we expanded on the notion of rice being a staple food in SEA. Using dessert rice dumplings, we established how a single component in a particular dish can differentiate between 2 countries and cultures. However, at the same time, that dish serves as a force binding the 2 cultures together. This illustrates the multi-faceted role rice plays in Southeast Asian society. In the following posts, we will move beyond the concept of rice as a food source and examine its other roles within SEA.

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References :

Sociology: Your Compass for a New World (Robert J. Brym & John Lie, 2007).

Belmont, CA: Thomas Higher Education

Millennium@ National Geographic.com, retrieved on the 11th March, 2007 from the World Wide Web :

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/2000/culture/global/frame1.html