So far in the rice process, I've shown you plowing, harrowing, planting and seedling re-planting, reaping, threshing, and winnowing. At this point the rice is out of the husks in separate grains, but there is still an inner hull on each rice grain. The rice is purposely harvested before this inner hull is dry enough to remove; if the rice were on the stalk for a longer time and got drier first, the grains would fall off the stalk and be lost on the ground when the stalk was cut. When cut, the rice grains must stay together in seed-heads so they can be carried in bundles and threshed. Then, the separated grains must be dried enough for the inner hull to be removed. At this point the rice is called "palay," (I remember it with the word "Malay" as in Malaysia) and it is often sold to a rice cooperative or other commodity producer who will continue the processing.
Solar rice drying is the only method I've seen used in this area. The rice
is often spread on the roadway on a hot day, for the sun to dry the grains.
Traffic goes around it out of respect for food in a poor, often-hungry place.
Sometimes, if there is enough room, it is put out on tarps or bamboo mats
on the road-shoulder. A few large-scale rice-processing businesses have
large concrete-paved areas for drying purposes (often dual-purpose, with
basketball goals). In all cases, the rice is carried out in bags, dumped, and
raked and turned over by hand until dry. All this work would be done in
USA by fuel-powered equipment, possibly even all one giant machine in
the field, reaping, threshing, winnowing, drying and bagging. Dried palay
can be stored in bags for a number of months or longer, until it is needed.
Lots of households keep sacks of palay, and call a portable rice-
polisher to come out and mill it for them a bag or two at a time; The
owner of this mill laughed and called his vehicle a "Bora-Bora car,"
but most of the others I've seen aren't much newer than this.
Bags of rice are handed up to the man on the roof, who dumps them
into a hopper . . .
. . . and the grains fall through a series of rollers covered with coarse mesh,
which "scuffs" the hull off of them. Nearly all the fiber, and most of the
vitamins, minerals, and other nutrition are removed in this process. What
remains is the polished white pellet of nearly-useless starch which most
Filipinos and Americans prefer to cook and eat. If ONLY the fibrous
part of the hull were removed, leaving the bran and other nutritious parts,
the rice would have much higher nutritional quality.
Quite a maze of belt-driven pulleys and shafts drive all the various rollers
and blowers which polish the rice. Power comes from the vehicle's
engine via a geared power take-off.
One stream of material, the white rice, is collected from a chute near the
vertical post above. The other barely-visible stream of material, just
above the word "collected," is the hull and bran material. THIS is
kept - or sold - and mixed with water to form a nutritious gruel for
poultry. We were formerly buying it for our geese, but now we have
enough from our polished rice to feed them. We get the rice, THEY
get the nutrition. I haven't found a way yet to "partially polish" the rice
and keep some of the good "brown stuff" on it for myself.
A view of the vehicle's strictly functional retro- interior. Driver rides in
"solid comfort" on a 2 x 12 plank. I have never seen a rice-machine vehicle
moving faster than 25 or 30 miles- per- hour; likely for good reasons.
That's about all I know to share about rice growing and processing. Here, they usually cook it differently than Americans do, preferring it softer and more mushy. Rice is often eaten nearly plain, but with whatever is available to put over the top and flavor it a little. In our household I notice that the others lean much more towards "plain" than I do, perhaps using less than 1/3 as much "sauce" and vegetables or meat ingredients compared with what I cover my rice up with.
I have in mind a recipe, actually more like general make-to-suit-yourself directions for a Filipino "national dish" called adobo. The sauce combines vinegar, soy sauce, and water in "cook's preference" to make a flavor that ends up tangy with "just a hint" of salt, plus garlic, onion and 1 or 2 other ingredients. "Balance of flavors" is the goal. This is just enough different to be interesting to American's taste, but not so different as to be unacceptable to most. It can end up in the flavor-range of a pot roast cooked with Worcestershire sauce.
As to quantities of ingredients, these are cook's preference, too. To make for 4 people:
Brown some onion and garlic in the bottom of a cooking pot. (1/2 c. onion and 3 cloves crushed garlic? - how much do you like?).
Brown 1-1/2 pounds of meat - either cubed pork or beef, or cut-up chicken pieces.
Sauce - only the first time, mix in a bowl 1 cup water, 1 T. each of vinegar and soy sauce.
Taste and adjust for "strength" and for proportion of salt to sour. This sauce will "cook down" to half its volume so I usually start out with a total of about 2 cups because I like plenty of sauce. After the first time, you can just add the ingredients to the cooking pot and adjust as you cook. As it "cooks down" it will get stronger flavored.
Simmer all ingredients in the cooking pot, adding about 20 whole black peppercorns (I personally would use a large pinch of coarse-ground pepper instead - be cautious about the quantity!), and a couple bay leaves. Cook 30 to 45 minutes until sauce is thickened and reduced and meat is tender, tasting and adjusting occasionally with water, soy sauce, or vinegar (small adjustments are best). Serve over rice.
There are no "set rules." Strikes me that some bell pepper might taste good in there, so I may try that some time. This "guideline" recipe will be enough to get you going and you'll pretty much make it to suit yourself.
I haven't posted a recipe before this because my blog is mostly photos, and up above this line is now a real big expanse of text with no photos.
- - MISCELLANEOUS - -
Ice is nice, too. (Yes, look up at the "Main Title" of this issue) About a year ago, we bought a freezer. We thought we would use it to help store garden produce (not!) and home-grown chickens (not!) so that we can be more self-sufficient. A freezer needs to be filled up with something always, so that it will stay colder without using so much electricity. Someone suggested that we freeze ice bags and sell them as a "sideline" until the freezer could be filled with food, instead. We thought, "OK, why not?"
4-inch x 12-inch plastic bags are filled with about 20 ounces of water, then tied - - about like making a water-balloon. Our municipal water here is pure, from the nearby mountains.
The bags are frozen, and the next day they are available for many
uses: home-use, fishing boats (our largest volume) and various
vending operations such as fish and chilled drinks. These little
bags of ice seem to be for sale everywhere here. Very few
households have refrigerators here; and any vendor needing ice
usually buys it - cost in our area is 3 pesos, about 7 cents U.S. At
this rate, we found that our ice sales gross enough to pay for a
freezer in a year; always pay 2x to 3x the cost of the electricity;
and provide a convenient "put and take" fund for incidentals.
Not bad for an unadvertised business we got into by accident.
Signs of the times? I'll get away from "food" subjects and take a look at one of my personal "fun" subjects, signs. I've always enjoyed even the most commonly seen signs, whose intent gets muddled up by their wording. "EMPLOYEES ONLY - - NO ADMITTANCE" is seen everywhere, but it seems to actually be saying that only the employees may not enter - everyone else can go in - get it?
Nearly all signs in the Philippines are in English; Philippines is by their constitution officially an English-speaking country and it is taught in all schools. The exception to this is in advertising slogans, which often use local languages.
This seemed just beautifully logical. WHY can't an outsider go inside?
Because he's an outsider!
Management must go somewhere else to smoke. Everyone
else, OK.
No playing with words for these two - my attempts to capture the Wright Tech campus sign in San Jose are frustrated by trees in the way. But every time I pass I think about good friend Jerry Wright whose technical skills have helped many people.
Little bags of stuff are for sale everywhere. "Hotel courtesy" sized products are usually a few pesos (nickel or dime) but they are the size which a lot of people can afford. I never saw toothpaste or shoe polish sold like this.
Smile the next time you hassle with quickly ironing something
just before you have to rush out the door. This "iron" is a hollow
aluminum box; first, you build a charcoal fire; then you use tongs to
put some hot coals into the iron (OK, it's an "aluminum"); when it
gets hot, then you "press" your clothes (I didn't say "iron" that time).
I smiled when I saw the "decoration" dangling near the ground
on this motorcycle ("tricycle") taxi. The kickstand it's wired to
isn't used because the bike is bolted to a sidecar for passengers.
(see archive navigation, top right of this page, for February 2013
"tricycle" posting).
I guess it's a great side-line - - - I just wouldn't usually be looking
for a key-making machine in a "beauty" business.
One joy of retirement. Ever since high school I've had a
white "untanned" stripe from a watch-band on my left wrist.
Now, that stripe is gone, replaced by "V" stripes on my feet
from wearing flip flops! Our bodies change as we grow
a little older, they say - - - this particular change is great!
We hope that you are enjoying your changes and challenges as they come along in your life - whether physical or circumstantial. I still have several topics scribbled on my "blog" scratch list and I frequently see other possible subjects developing. My little camera is getting near 4,000 exposures I think, and that may not be the grand total as I've switched memory chips back and forth some. So there's plenty left for me to share here.
Have a fair and blessed day!
Tim and Bernadette Larson, Philippines
