On Food and Cooking

throughout the grains and heating them
enough to gelate and soften the starch
granules. Indian cooks boil the rice in an
excess of water that’s poured off when the
rice is done, so the grains end up intact and
separate. Chinese and Japanese cooks boil rice
with just enough water to moisten and cook it
through in a closed pot, which produces a
mass of grains that cling together and are
easily eaten with chopsticks. Where rice has
always been an everyday staff of life, through
much of East Asia, it’s usually prepared
simply in water, and judged by the intactness
of its grains and their whiteness, gloss,
tenderness, and flavor. Where rice was more
unusual and even a luxury, in central Asia, the
Middle East, and the Mediterranean, it’s often
enriched with broths, oils, butter, and other
ingredients to make such dishes as pilafs,
risottos, and paellas. Iranians, perhaps the
most sophisticated rice cooks, make polo by
partly boiling long-grain rice in excess water,