Advertisement
On the Menu
Hong Kong has how many rice varieties? One woman’s drive to celebrate them all
An ambitious decade-long effort to catalogue and preserve Hong Kong’s many local rice types has led to a new book and exhibition
2-MIN READ2-MIN
Listen
Charmaine Mok is the Deputy Culture Editor at SCMP and the desk's food and wine specialist.
I often think that we take rice for granted. It is seen as a boring blank canvas for a far more exciting palette of flavours coming from side dishes and main proteins of myriad tastes and textures.
In some circles, rice is villainised, painted as a low-value carb that offers calories, a food coma, and not much else.
We often forget that rice was once a luxury – a fact I was reminded of recently when I saw a well-preserved rice ration card, issued during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in World War II.
Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice