Rice. And more rice.

[rhythmaning]

Something I forgot when I wrote about my success with risotto: the difficulty buying rice…

Because everybody has emphasised the importance of using the right kind of rice when you make a risotto: a high starch variety – like arborio (I can’t spell, let alone pronounce, the other possible varieties; and I like the word arborio - I can imagine the arboreal rice growing at great height).

Things is, we have plenty of basmati rice is stock; but no arborio. So I needed to buy some.

This shouldn’t have been difficult; I live around the corner from a large Tesco, and they have lots of rice there; I even know which aisle it is on. I know that because it has a large sign saying “Rice” hanging from the ceiling.

So off to Tesco I go, and into the right aisle, and straight to the rice. Lots of rice. Sixty different kinds of rice. (I know because in a fit of pique I counted them.) No arborio. There were several different types of basmati, other long grain, twenty kinds of Uncle Ben’s, even some rather vile looking “quick risotto” packs, flavoured with e-numbers. No arborio. And none of the other types of risotto-friendly rice, either.

I found this very hard to believe – it couldn’t be too much to ask if, amongst the sixty other kinds of rice, they might stock the kind I actually wanted to buy.

I wandered up and down the aisle. I then I noticed some organic rice hiding in the “Speciality Ingredients” section on the same aisle. I poke about a bit, but still I can’t see my goal. I wander up and down a bit more, until I find a young woman putting out some other goods. I ask her if they have any arborio rice.

She takes me straight to it. It is not in the “Rice” section; nor in the “Speciality Ingredients” section. No, it is opposite the “Speciality Ingredients” section – in the “Quality Ingredients” section. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that!

I had to stop myself asking for the “Lack of Quality Ingredients” section – after all, I was very, very grateful for this woman, who had saved me.

But still – on one aisle, they have rice in three different sections?

That’s not confusing at all. That makes absolute sense. There is clearly a need for workable taxonomy of food…

[ETA] And whilst I am rabbiting on about rice, I recently saw an entertaining ad on tv for boil in the bag rice. So simple - all you do is put the bag in boiling water and wait ten minutes - perfect rice. And so fast! Yes, three or four minutes faster than no-boil in the bag rice. Because those three or four minutes are so precious! Why, why, oh why?

Comments

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Oh, good grief.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The layout of large supermarkets is really confusing. Our local Loblaws is partially organised by ingredient type and partially by ethnicity. There is no a prioriu way of knowing whether, for example, jasmine rice, will be treated as 'rice' or 'Thai'.

“Lack of Quality Ingredients”

That'll be where they keep the Scottish ethnic foods like deep-fried Mars Bars

Why, why, oh why?

Back when I worked for Bird's Eye, the boil in the bag curries came with boil in the bag rice. I think it was a solution for bedsits with only one electric ring.

[filmstalker (from livejournal.com)]

Ten minutes in the microwave. 8oz rice, 1 pint water. Who needs all that extra packaging and added cost.

(Ooh..and I'm trying out my own OpenID)