Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Random Trivia from Japan - Rice

The average Japanese citizen eats 1/2 a lb of rice a day. Rice is served breakfast (with tea poured over it?), lunch (in a bento box) and dinner. Rice is so liked that the American equivalent to "Dinn - er!" - "Gohan desu" literally means "let's eat rice". I think this phrase may prove more useful than "Is that Mt Fuji" - which I'm guessing we can figure out anyway. ::snort::

According to our book the favored rice in Japan is short and white???? Rice balls look yummy. Of course, I'm wondering if "rice cake" will take on a new meaning once we arrive in Japan.

The children had lots of questions today about HOW to eat rice with chopsticks....but I've got that covered. More to follow.

Please note that our random trivia is taken from books and not real life.....I'm very interested to see which facts are accurate and which are outdated. ::snort::

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

7 comments:

Kim said...

I just posted a story about rice on Junnie's blog. You might enjoy it! An additional piece of trivia is that it is almost impossible to buy imported rice in Japan - import laws. So, rice here is much more expensive than in the US. You can buy the rice that needs rinsed well or not. The "or not" is a bit more expensive. But, for cheap rice, you will pay an average of 3,000 yen for 10 kilos. So, 30 bucks for 22 pounds. And, rice balls aren't round. They are usually triangular! Drove me crazy!

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

I'll go check it out Kim. Good grief....maybe I should ship some rice. ::snort::

We read that rice balls were "sometimes triangle" but I thought our book had it wrong. LOL

Paula said...

Actually, I find Japanese rice to be one of the easiest things to eat with chopsticks--it's sticky, sticks to the sticks :-) Now if you try it with non-sticky rice you'll have to go the Chinese way--hold the bowl right up to your mouth and shovel it in!

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Good to know Paula. Will check it out Kim.

Anonymous said...

Sis:

A Japanese friend I know aays she likes to eat rice like we did in the Philippines with the point of our fingers. :):):)

I love rice that is not all polished. You sure didn't like rice all that much hen you were a kid though.

Tea over rice would be a hard one for me.

l/p Mom T

Kim said...

Green tea is really good over rice. I was sure suprised over that!

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

I'll have to check out the green tea over rice, Kim. I'll withhold judgment. LOL