Glutinous rice

• 1. Introduction

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  Glutinous rice sits behind a statistic that sounds almost invented. In Laos, a landlocked country of roughly 7 million people, each person eats about 171 kilograms of it every year. That is 377 pounds, and it is the highest per-capita consumption anywhere on earth.

  The name is a trap. Glutinous rice contains no gluten. It has opaque grains, very little amylose, and a clinging stickiness once cooked. It is grown mainly in Southeast Asia and the northeastern regions of South Asia, and it is eaten widely across the continent.

  So what makes one grain stick when its cousins stay loose? Where did that trait begin, and who first chose to keep it? And how did a rice become a national identity, a festival centerpiece, and even a building material?

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• 2. One Mutation

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  The word glutinous comes from the Latin glūtinōsus, which means glue-like. It describes texture only. Like all rice, this one has no glutenin and no gliadin, so it should be safe on gluten-free diets.

  Starch has two parts, amylose and amylopectin. Glutinous rice has almost no amylose and a great deal of amylopectin, and amylopectin is what makes the grains cling together. The whole difference traces back to a single mutation that farmers chose to keep.

  A genetic study from 2002 asked where that mutation began. Every glutinous sample in the study carried the same waxy mutation, which points to one origin. The ancestral genetic pattern turned up most often among Southeast Asian cultivars. The authors read that as strong evidence the mutation first arose in Southeast Asia, probably in the uplands of the mainland, and then spread across the rest of Asia.

  The mutation is also known to have first appeared in temperate japonica rice, where it is far more common. Gene flow later carried it into tropical japonica, called javanica, and into indica cultivars.

  You can spot the rice in a bag. Milled glutinous grains are white and fully opaque, while ordinary rice looks somewhat translucent when raw. Leave the bran on, and the grain can come out purple or black. Those dark types are separate strains of white glutinous rice.

  The dark grains carry a warning. In developing Asia regulation is light, and some governments have issued advisories about toxic dyes in colour-adulterated rice. Cultivars of the rice include japonica, indica and tropical japonica strains.

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• 3. Children of Sticky Rice

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  Along the Greater Mekong Sub-region, the Lao have grown glutinous rice for roughly 4000 to 6000 years. It is the national dish of Laos, and an estimated 85 percent of the rice the country produces is glutinous.

  Lao people often call themselves the children of sticky rice. The saying goes that without it, they would not be Lao. It has also been said that wherever Lao communities settle in the world, sticky rice is the glue that holds them to their culture and to home.

  The Lao name is khao niao. Khao means rice and niao means sticky. The grains are soaked for several hours and steamed in a bamboo basket called a houat. The cook then turns the rice onto a clean surface and kneads it with a wooden paddle to release the steam.

  The result is a ball that sticks to itself but not to fingers. The rice is sticky yet dry, unlike the wet, gummy texture of ordinary varieties. A small bamboo basket called a thip khao keeps the ball ready at the table.

  Toasted grains, khao khoua, add a nutty flavour. Crushed, they become khao khua, which is necessary for larb and nam tok in both Laos and the Isan region of northeastern Thailand. A popular Lao meal pairs larb with grilled chicken called ping gai, a spicy green papaya salad called tam mak hoong, and sticky rice.

  Street vendors sell khao lam, in which sticky rice, coconut milk and red or black beans or taro are roasted inside a bamboo tube. The tube turns out a sweet, aromatic mixture. Nam khao, the crispy rice salad, deep-fries balls of sticky and jasmine rice and tosses them with som moo sausage, peanuts, mint and lime juice.

  The variety on offer in the fields matches the variety in the kitchen. The International Rice Research Institute has called Laos a collector's paradise. Collectors it trained have gathered over 13,500 samples there, covering 3,200 distinct varieties, the largest known diversity of sticky rice anywhere.

  As of 2013, the International Rice Genebank held approximately 6,530 varieties of glutinous rice from five continents.

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• 4. Baskets and Bamboo

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  In Thailand, sticky rice at the table is typically served to each diner in a small woven basket. It is traditionally eaten with the right hand. Central Thailand and Isan call it khao niao, which means sticky rice. Northern Thailand calls it khao nueng, meaning steamed rice.

  Leftovers have their own life. Khao chi is a patty of salted rice, often brushed with beaten egg and grilled over charcoal until crusty. Families traditionally made it from leftover rice and gave it early in the morning to children or to passing monks as an offering. Khao pong pounds leftover steamed rice into thin sheets and grills them into crunchy crisps.

  Tourists know the dessert khao niao mamuang, sweet coconut sticky rice with mango. Cooks also use steamed sticky rice to ferment pork into the sour sausage called naem. Several wrapped preparations, such as khao tom mat and khao ho, serve as offerings at religious festivals, for merit-making or to ward off evil spirits.

  In Myanmar the rice is called kao hnyin, and it is a breakfast staple. Kao hnyin baung comes on a banana leaf with boiled peas or fritters such as baya gyaw, sprinkled with salted toasted sesame. Paung din packs the rice into a segment of bamboo. When the bamboo is peeled away, a thin skin remains around the rice and releases a distinctive aroma.

  The Htamanè pwè festival falls on the full moon of Dabodwè in February. Htamanè is cooked in a huge wok. Two men each wield a wooden spoon the size of an oar, while a third coordinates the folding and stirring. The pot holds kao hnyin, ngacheik, coconut shavings, peanuts, sesame and ginger in peanut oil.

  During Thingyan, the Burmese New Year, cooks drop glutinous rice balls filled with jaggery into a boiling wok. They are ready to serve the moment they resurface.

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• 5. Colours and Cakes

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  Vietnam gives the rice two names. Raw grain is gạo nếp, and the cooked dish is xôi. Cooks colour xôi with plants. Gấc fruit makes it red, pandan leaf extract makes it green with a distinctive flavour, and the magenta plant gives its own hue. Black rice produces xôi nếp than.

  Xôi ngũ sắc, the five-colour version, is the traditional food of the Thái, Dao and Tày peoples. Savoury xôi can be lunch, while sweet versions are typically breakfast. Xôi thập cẩm piles on dried shrimp, chicken, Chinese sausage, peanuts, coconut and fried garlic.

  Bánh is the most diverse Vietnamese category, and only some of it uses glutinous rice. Bánh chưng is a square dumpling of pork and mung bean paste wrapped in a dong leaf, usually eaten at the Vietnamese New Year. Bánh giầy, a white, round, chewy cake, often accompanies it at the same celebration.

  Bánh cốm is made from young glutinous rice seeds stirred in a pot, with juice from the pomelo flower added. Bánh trôi mixes glutinous rice flour with a small share of ordinary rice flour, in ratios such as 9:1 or 8:2, and hides sugarcane rock candy at its centre.

  In the Philippines the rice is called malagkit in Tagalog, pilit in Visayan and diket in Ilocano, and all three words mean sticky. Cooks soak it overnight in water or coconut milk and grind it, traditionally with stone mills, into a smooth dough called galapóng. Galapong is the base for many rice cakes.

  Traditional galapong was allowed to ferment. A starter such as tapay or bubod, or palm wine called tubâ, hastened the process. Modern versions can substitute yeast or baking soda. Some recipes even call for wood ash lye.

  The sweets are known as kakanin, from kanin, meaning prepared rice. Glutinous rice figures prominently in puto, the steamed cakes, and bibingka, the baked cakes. Puto bumbong is made with pirurutong, a heirloom rice that ranges from black to purple to reddish brown.

  Pirurutong and the milky white tapol rice are both expensive and increasingly rare. Some Filipino cooks now substitute dyed glutinous rice or purple yam, called ube, to get the same colour.

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• 6. Rice on the Calendar

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  Chinese New Year brings niangao and tangyuan, the sweet-filled dumplings, both made from glutinous rice flour. The Dragon Boat Festival belongs to zòngzi, glutinous rice and a sweet or savoury filling wrapped in bamboo leaves and boiled or steamed. People also treat zòngzi as an easily carried travel meal, popular in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.

  Flour made from the rice gives dim sum a flexible, resilient dough that absorbs added flavours. Lo mai gai wraps chicken and steamed rice in a lotus leaf. Bābǎofàn mixes the steamed rice with lard, sugar and eight kinds of fruits or nuts.

  The Hakka people of southern China make steamed buns and patties from coarsely ground rice dough, called ban. Aiban gets its green colour and tea-like taste from dried, powdered mugwort. Hakka caibao use a glutinous rice skin where other cooks would use wheat dough.

  Japan calls the rice mochigome. Ground into mochiko flour, it becomes mochi, traditionally prepared for the Japanese New Year though eaten year-round. In Korea the rice is chapssal, and its stickiness is chalgi. Cooks stuff chalbap, the cooked rice, into samgyetang.

  In eastern Bangladesh the rice is binni chal. Binni bhat is a popular breakfast served with fish or meat curry. Modhu bhat, whose name means honey rice, is a creamy porridge from the Chittagong area, enjoyed in cooler months or at rural celebrations.

  Nepal ties a dish to Teej, the greatest festival of Nepalese women. The dish is Latte or Chamre. Across Indonesia and Malaysia, lemang, glutinous rice and coconut milk grilled in bamboo lined with banana leaves, marks the festive seasons of Lebaran and Raya.

  One dessert crosses borders. Atikka pitha wraps rice with coconut, date palm sugar and ripe banana in banana leaves. Similar steamed parcels are known as khao tom mat in Thai, num ansom in Khmer, lepet in Indonesian, suman in Filipino, and bánh tét and bánh chưng in Vietnamese.

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• 7. Mortar and Spirits

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  Wheatpaste, an adhesive, can be made from glutinous rice starch. In Vietnam, the flour also makes tò he, a figurine. The rice's stickiness stretches well beyond the dinner plate.

  The grain also goes into the bottle. Thailand brews sato, known as Thai rice wine. Laos makes the rice whisky called Lao-Lao. Vietnam makes rượu nếp, rượu cần and rượu đế. Indonesia makes tuak and brem bali.

  In Assam, indigenous communities prefer sticky rice for rice beer because it gives a sweeter and more alcoholic result. They also offer the beer to their gods and ancestors. The same region's sweets are built on bora saul rather than on milk, which sets them apart from most traditional sweets elsewhere in India.

  The rice's most surprising job is in masonry. Sticky rice mortar is a component of building mortar. Chemical tests have confirmed it in the Great Wall of China and the city walls of Xi'an.

  In Assam it was used to build palaces during Ahom rule.

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