Rice is the staple food of life. Almost every culture manages to use rice and many regard it as essential. In the Philippines in Tagalog the term "ulam" means side dish because it's assumed that rice is the main dish. Mostly there's rice and a meat. What makes rice such a popular dish? Could it be that it grows so freely? It helps support sustainable landcare and can be grown almost anywhere. There's brown rice, white rice, orange rice, sticky rice, long grain, short grain, wild rice, bazmati, and safron. Those are just some of the common kinds. There are also other varieties from different parts of Africa. It's also a large part of the diet in Latin American countries. It's got a wide variety of uses too. Maybe this is why its such an important part of many countries diets. It can be used for a lot of things and its cheap. Rice is only 24 cents a pound, and that's considered expensive. Seven months prior to that price it was half that. So rice but what other than a dish can it be used for. Well it can be turned into flour, oil, noodle, and it can be used in soda, beer, and sake as a beverage. There's also use in pastry dishes. Mochi balls are made out of a pounded rice mush. Mix rice with brown sugar and you've got sweet rice. Then in America there's rice porridge, and rice pudding. Rice pudding is a big treat in Mexico and Horchata is a drink made from rice. So it's cheap and has a wide use, but what else. It's nutritious. Some rices are better than others though and these tend to be Brown rice. Brown rice has the bran intact whereas white rice has removed the bran. Even with the bran removed there's protein in the grain. So it's cheap, healthy and has a wide usage. Could there be something else. I'm not so sure. Rice has no flavor, yet it's consumption is huge. People in Asian countries consume a hundred and seventy six pounds of rice a year. That's remarkable.

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Berbere: the Spice of Life

Ethiopian food is really good. If you've never been I recommend you go up to L.A.'s Little Ethiopia to Messob Ethiopian Restaurant on 1041 S Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90019-4402 in the Fairfax district. You can try several different things, including: Wat, Tibs, Kitfo, and Fitfit. Wat is any one of a number of different stews. It's made with different things. There are Wat made up of chickpeas, cabbage and carrots, lentils, chard, greens, fish, beef, chicken, and lamb. In it is sauteed onions, vegetable oil, and berbere which makes a spicy keiy. Berbere is a combination of chili and other spices and it's essential to many of the dishes. Another key ingredient is niter kibbeh, a clarified butter infused with ginger, garlic, and several spices. The Berbere is instantly recognizable in the dishes. Tibs is sauteed meat or vegetables and special Tibs is the meat on a vegetable salad. Kitfo is raw or rare ground beef marinated in a spicy chili called mitmita and niter kebbeh. What's interesting about eating Wat is that you do it with your hands. There's a sour pancake called injera that you grab the Wat with your fingers and eat it. I really enjoy this basic, primitive type of eating. It's very peaceful and simple. It's even fun. Your in close contact with what your eating and you can feel it in your hands. Now there's a type of drink that I unfortunately have not had the chance to have. It's honey wine, similar to mead, cal Tej. It's drinken typically in a Tej bet, which is like a bar, where Tej is served. The food is served on a special table top called a Mesob. It's woven out of straw and is covered until the food comes. At that time a bowl of warm water is put on the table for people to wash their hands and then the Mesob is opened and the food is placed on top.

So feel free to try this interesting type of cuisine. I recommend it highly. The berbere makes the food just the smallest bit spicy, but it shouldn't put anyone off.

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Our Fascination with Fried Foods

Americans love fried food. It's all we eat. Just earlier today I had fried chicken. It's a terrible problem that we have as Americans. About twenty years ago squid was thought of as a cheap fish that people didn't eat. Then it was fried and it became a sensation. Now Calamari is an expensive meal and a Calamari steak is upscale dining. Why do we love fried foods so much? We love them perhaps because we're overindulgent. Other cultures don't spend as much time as we do eating foods that are toxic to our digestion. We eat cheese, fried in batter. Cheese, an oily fattening substance, is then breaded and deep-fried. We even fry ice cream: a heavily sweet and fattening desert. We fry so much else. We fry onions, potatoes, in two different ways, chilis, chicken, zucchini, bananas, snickers, Twinkies, doughnuts, dough, and hot dogs. There are even people who eat deep fried macaroni and cheese, dill pickles, pizza, coca cola, mars bars, cheesecake, pop tarts, and Oreos. Deep frying is an American phenomenon. Some of this stuff sounds despicable. Imagine eating a piece of pizza that’s been deep fried. It sounds terrible. Or what about eating a deep fried pickle? What’s wrong with the cool and refreshing taste of a dill pickle. When did it become okay to deep fry anything. This phenomenon only occurs in America too. The only things deep fried outside the United States are plantains, and the idea might have come from banana chips. The only other deep fried foods I found outside of the United States were Scottish deep fried cheeseburgers (again terrible), and English deep fried cheese curds.

Suprisingly enough, there are rules on how to deep fry something. If you do it right the food won't be greasy, because the moisture in the food repels the oil. Deep frying something heats the water within the food thereby steaming the food from the outside. It’s an interesting process and there is a correct temperature at which to fry something. You have to fry it in between 345 and 376 degrees Fahrenheit. If you fry something for too long, the water will leave the food and the oil will penetrate it. So it’s best to make sure and follow a given time when frying something.