The Culture of Cooking Rice: The Role of Rice in Millennials’ Lives
At the beginning of July, London-based Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng posted a YouTube video titled “Uncle Roger DISGUSTED by this Egg Fried Rice Video.” His persona, “Uncle Roger,” provided horrified commentary on a BBC Food video about making the traditionally Chinese dish. The techniques that outraged Uncle Roger included measuring the water with a cup instead of a finger, using a pot instead of a rice cooker, draining the cooked rice in a colander and rinsing the rice after cooking rather than before. The hilarious video went viral and attracted tens of thousands of equally appalled commenters.
It’s generally known that rice is a staple of the Asian diet. The universal, strong reaction to this video shows how much the methods of cooking rice, particularly using an electric rice cooker, are also a part of Asian culture, heavily influenced by upbringing. The rice cooker is an invaluable tool to many Asians due to its foolproof functionality: Add rice and water to the inner pot, press “cook” and when the rice is done, the pot automatically stops cooking and switches to a warming setting.
Jyhjong Hwang, who now lives in the United States, spent her childhood cooking rice and other foods in the versatile Tatung rice cooker or “electric pot” that is ubiquitous in Taiwanese households. Due to the ability of the appliance to do anything—from reheating leftovers to cooking rice to steaming fish to making lu rou (braised pork)—the Tatung rice cooker became the go-to gift for young people leaving for college or getting married. Tatung rice cookers are especially popular for international students. “It’s a piece of home,” Hwang said.
Prior to attending college in Boston, Shivani Hernandez was raised in Kashmir, a region of India that she said is known for eating rice. Influenced by her upbringing, Hernandez uses a pressure cooker to make rice.
“My family still uses a pressure cooker for cooking so much stuff. It’s definitely a part of our daily cooking. We make staples in it like rice, like dal. You can even cook meat in it if you want,” she said. “Even as a child, I always associated the pressure cooker whistle with ‘Food is coming!’ and delicious smells.”
Before moving to the U.S. as a child, Sha Yan grew up in central China, where she said that rice is the main starch, whereas people in the northern part of China eat more noodles and buns. Her method is to wash the rice twice and then fill the rice cooker with water about one or two centimeters above the top of the rice. “Technically, it’s supposed to be one finger, one knuckle above the rice line,” Yan said, describing the popular “Asian finger” technique for measuring the cooking water.
“I’ve been eating rice for as long as I can remember,” Siddhant Sharma said, although he never had to learn how to cook the rice himself until he moved to Boston in 2014. “I would just eyeball things at first….I had learned the finger technique, as well. My girlfriend at the time showed me how to use the knuckle edge to figure out how much water.”
Where Sharma grew up in Mumbai, rice is cooked in pressure cookers, and there is a specific recipe for each type of rice. For instance, lentil curry (dal) would be eaten with a sticky rice, whereas people in Kashmir would make the rice less sticky.
While Asian-Americans’ affinity for rice and methods of cooking it come from their childhoods, the role of rice in many of their diets has evolved compared to their parents’ diets. Older generations view rice as a necessity, but younger generations tend to be more health-conscious, and they view rice as a convenience or a comfort food.
“For my parents, when they’re not able to eat rice, they feel hungry. They feel like they’re not fulfilled eating pasta or pizza or American food when we’re traveling. We will always need to go to a Chinese restaurant to eat Chinese food and rice just for them to feel full,” Yan said.
Kat Chui grew up in New York eating rice made the traditional way—in a rice cooker with water measured using the “Asian finger.” In college, she didn’t have a rice cooker, so she taught herself how to make rice on the stove.
“Ten years ago now, I cut out rice from my diet. At that time, when I told my parents, they freaked out. They said, ‘You’re not going to get enough nutrition; you’re going to be hungry.’ I said, ‘I’m just looking out for my health.’ Diabetes runs in my family, so I was trying to watch my carb intake and change my diet,” Chui said. Now, she only makes rice if she is cooking for a large group, and she uses an Instant Pot in the same way that she would use a rice cooker.
“I grew up eating a lot of white rice as a kid. I ate it in savory foods, in desserts,” Sharma said. “As I grew up, around college and grad school, I developed more of an ‘eat to live, don’t live to eat’ principle. So I have significantly lowered my intake of white rice so much so that I have almost entirely switched to brown rice or quinoa in salads.”
“I don’t eat rice as much these days,” Hwang said. She attributed the reason partly to health and partly to globalization because she has more access to other types of cuisine. “For a while, I was eating only brown rice, which has a very different cooking process, but then I decided, you know what, I don’t eat rice enough to feel bad for eating white rice, so if I’m going to eat rice at all, it’s going to be white rice, and I’m a much happier person now.”
Yan also has become very picky about the type of rice that she cooks. “I tried using brown rice, and I hated it because I find it very hard and very hard to digest, especially since it’s not what I grew up eating. White rice is what I’m used to,” she said.
Kevin Moy grew up on a mix of Chinese and Filipino food, as well as American food. Now that he lives on his own, he consumes less rice than he did as a child because he frequently eats out.
“Pre-COVID, I really didn’t cook very often,” Moy said. “I’ve been cooking more during COVID….One-pot rice dishes like fried rice—I’ve been making jambalaya, as well—are easier to make during COVID, so I’ve been eating more rice because it’s easy to cook and I’m not eating out as much.”
The ease of making rice appeals to Hernandez, as well. “I have rice a lot more now than I used to as a kid because it’s so much easier to make than roti, which is the other thing we used to have,” she said.
Diversifying culinary choices tends to lead Asian-Americans to eat less rice but leads some non-Asians to consume more rice, especially once they discover the ease of the rice cooker. Dan Eisenberg is one such person. His now-wife had suggested asking for a rice cooker when they were planning their wedding registry. As the cook, Eisenberg didn’t think such an appliance was necessary because he was used to cooking rice in a pot on the stove.
“I have to say, I was completely wrong. We use the rice cooker at least once a week, and it is one of the most-used things that we got from our wedding,” he said. “I didn’t really grow up with rice as a big component….I kind of came to it more on my own just through trying to expand my own horizons.”
Katrina Vikmanis is another non-Asian who started eating more rice after discovering the rice cooker. “My mom always cooked rice in a pot on the stove. When I moved to New York, my roommate was from Indonesia, and she used a rice cooker, and that’s when I first heard of it and used one….That was nine years ago. She actually went back to Indonesia and left her rice cooker, and I still use it today,” she said.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, the simplicity, rice and rice cookers have a way of becoming an important part of one’s culture, no matter what age you are when you first incorporate them into your life. Chui summed up the enduring nostalgia of rice. “As of now, it doesn’t play as much of a role. I think now it’s squarely in the zone of comfort food, like whenever I’m sick, and it will kind of remind me of home,” she said.
For Mei Mei restaurant’s chef/owner Irene Li, fried rice has always been a staple in her home and a wonderful way to use up leftovers. See Irene’s recipe below:
This story appeared as an online exclusive in September 2020.
