Rice snobbery

[narcasse]

It’s not a good sign when though it’s too early to really be able to tell if Nestlé’s insta- frappe is actually any good I can still tell that the supermarket own brand sushi is made with a shoddy attempt at rice. I caught myself thinking that my homemade salmon maki tastes better than whatever it was in the little plastic tray incredulously until it dawned on me that I do actually buy reasonable Japanese rice and sundry when I make sushi myself so I’d expect it to taste better anyway. Still, it was quite the reminder of high school kitchens and the sorry liquid mess that appeared to only incidentally have some manner of long-grain rice floating in it that was touted as part of some curry combination. I spent years turning my nose up that mess because the travesty floating in it’s requisite tray wasn’t rice by any sensible definition. Which is to say that unless you know what you’re doing or you’re learning and will correct your procedure as appropriate, you probably shouldn’t be cooking rice in the first place. And to think, only last night a friend pointed out that another supermarket own brand sushi was dire to which I wondered aloud how on earth you could get rice wrong.