IN TOKYO
I MUST confess to eating too much lately. To be more precise, I have been helping myself to a second bowl of rice at most meals since buying a new rice cooker.
No, I have not been eating more food, just more rice – and white rice at that!
It all started about two weekends ago when I decided it was time to retire our rice cooker of 10 years. Getting a new one however turned out to be quite a task.
There is a whole galaxy of models to choose from, from cheap, no-frills cookers all the way to high-end affairs that cost much more than a laptop computer.
Each manufacturer has its own concept of what the ideal rice should taste like and has gone about it in their own way to realise that ideal.
After wading through the catalogues and not making much sense out of the technical mumbo-jumbo, I finally decided the easiest way was to choose a model that would look nice in the kitchen and basically hope for the best. After all, I thought, how wrong can you go with a rice cooker.
So I picked out one in the 20,000 – 30,000 yen range, which the sales staff assured us was what the average Japanese consumer pays for these days.
Well, if the new cooker lasts me for another 10 years, it will be a good enough investment, I thought.
At dinner that night, the rice was the main attraction, as far as I was concerned.
My first impression was that the rice prepared in the new cooker was slightly firmer than what I was used to and that each grain was very well cooked, as the catalogue had promised. Japanese short-grain rice can’t get any better than this. Not a bad buy, I thought to myself.
The next morning, the leftover rice in the cooker was reheated at the push of a button. In the past, such leftover rice always tasted slightly dried out and tough.
But this time – surprise, surprise - the reheated rice tasted almost as if it was freshly cooked, no hint of having dried out at all.
After breakfast, there was still some leftover rice, so it was wrapped in cling wrap and put in the freezer.
A few days later, I popped the frozen rice into the microwave and about 4 minutes later, I had a bowl of steaming white rice before me. To my surprise, the rice again tasted as if it were freshly cooked. This was truly a revelation.
I am well aware that the Japanese are obsessed with making the perfect rice cooker. Not long ago, I interviewed a man who devoted his entire working life toward that end.
But he was involved chiefly in designing high-end cookers. I had not expected even average cookers to have improved so much.
This is no doubt a case of a product improving because consumers demanded quality.
The Japanese are probably the most fastidious rice-eating nation in the world.
In restaurants, a bowl of white rice is usually served on its own as the last course of a formal Japanese meal. In order not to mar the taste of the rice, the only accompaniments permitted are some pickles to refresh the palate between morsels of rice and a small bowl of soup.
In Japan, rice is not perceived merely as a foil to strongly-flavoured dishes, as tends to be case in other rice-eating cultures.
It is also not just the older generation of Japanese that waxes lyrical about the rice they eat. Even young Japanese turn instant gourmets when it comes to rice.
Surprisingly, despite the recession, rice-cookers are selling well in Japan and the consumption of rice has gone up.
One reason is that Japanese consumers turned to eating more rice after the escalation in the price of wheat worldwide drove up the domestic prices of pasta and bread.
The other reason is that many people are eating out less often in order to save money, and are more willing to invest in a new rice cooker.
Two weeks have passed and I still look forward to my bowl of white rice at each meal.
I am hoping to get over the euphoria pretty soon so that I can cut back to one bowl of rice per meal and not have to worry about my weight.
But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon!