Stuff We Rike: #1 Rice

I am a person rooted in logic and am a firm believer in deductive reasoning, the process of determining that if certain statements are accepted to be true then other statements that follow can be shown to follow from the aforementioned accepted true statements. Now in order for deductive reasoning to be applicable it is necessary to assess the truth values of the statements involved. In this case we will determine the truth values of the following statements.

p= There are a lot of Asian people

q= People like carbs

r= Rice are carbs

I doubt that many people can doubt the truthiness of premise "p" as according to Wikipedia:

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.9% of its land area) and with approximately 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population.

That is a lot of people; in fact that is a lot of Asian people. Premise "p" can stay.

Premise "q" proves to be a bit harder to prove. According to the FDA's tried and true food pyramid,

carboyhydrates should account for 6-11 servings of our dietary consumption which is more than any other food group. Since we can assume that people only consume a lot of what they like, nutritional value be damned, we can therefore assume that people like to eat a lot of carbohydrates.

In order to prove premise "r" all we have to do is look at the flood classification of rice. Rice is actually a cereal grain and one of the staple carbohydrates for a significant portion of the world.

Now that we have determined that all the premises are indeed true we can now apply the tried and true law of syllogism which states that:

If p => q and

If q => r then

drumroll...

dramatic pause...

p => r

boisterous applause!

Therefore we can without a doubt conclude that Asian people like rice.

Now lets dive a little deeper into why we love rice even with its highly labor intensive and water necessitating demands. Besides the nutritional value of rice and its ability to provide energy and facilitate oxygen to our brains, rice has become a part of the Asian identity and is culturally ingrained into the Asian lifestyle. In fact in most Asian languages the term for meal is actually synonymous with the term for rice. A rice less meal is a near foreign concept to a vast majority of Asians.

Good rice is like porn; you know it when you see it. And Asians love good rice. Rice offers something that many other foods cannot; it is among the most versatile foods in existence. Its malleability, squishability, and compatibility offer it a plethora of culinary options that are absent to most other foods. It can be a primary dish, side item, or desert item. It can be utilitarian and it can be elegant. It can be breakfast, lunch or dinner. It can be all three. Rice is the chameleon of foods as it fits in in whatever situation you place it in.

Nary an Asian household or dorm room can be complete without the requisite rice cooker. Most Asians cannot even fathom preparing rice via pot and stove top. Most people expect toasters, blenders and silverware as wedding gifts. Asians expect rice cookers and preferably the rice cookers that can prepare over 8 cups of rice at a time with the tray that goes on top that allows you to steam vegetables at the same time.

Rice is so sacred amongst Asians that it has reached almost reverential status. There aren't many things more insulting to Asian mothers and especially grandmothers than seeing somebody stain the pure white delicacies with soy sauce or other forms of condiments. Some things are meant to be pure. Rice is one of those things. So if you are wondering why you are receiving Asian death stares while eating rice, it is a direct result of rice bastardization. So when eating your next bowl of rice don't be "the soy sauce on rice guy or gal," and apply soy or duck sauce at your own peril. Would you pee on your mother's grave? Probably not. Well we don't put soy sauce on our rice.