A Brief History of Rice

"For a Filipino, a meal is not a meal without rice. Besides being the sacrificial cereal for every meal, rice is also ground into flour to make bibingka and puto, pounded flat to make pinipig, and even crushed, dyed and fried to make colorful decorations come fiesta time in Quezon," said Doreen G. Fenandez, a food columnist and researcher.

Rice has become a significant part not only of the Filipino cuisine, but of the culture as well. Without rice in the table, many Pinoys would not even call it a meal. When did rice started being a staple of the Filipino life?

In the Philippines, the cultivation of rice started in the 3200 B.C.  Like of the many southeast Asian countries, rice grown in dry fields was the most common type of rice. Much of this rice was grown by means of the slash-and-burn method of agriculture, and it was glutinous, or sticky rice. It was only in the years after the birth of Christ that wet-field, or irrigated rice cultivation, spread throughout the region.

3200 B.C. proved to be an important point in history for Filipinos - this is when they started to settle in one area as opposed to moving constantly, a typical life of a hunter. The result is that they had more time to develop their culture. Rice made it possible for civilization to appear, not only in the Philippines, but to the whole southeast Asia.

The earliest found archaeological excavation of the use of rice in the Philippines was found at a site called Andarayan. This is a very fertile plain. The sample of rice that archaeologists found is a mix between wild rice and the cultivated rice that we see today. Another find at the site suggests that the people used rice in a variety of ways, as there are clay pots that contain the stems of rice.

Some people disagree that rice is the main staple of our daily consumption, pointing out that sweet potatoes and taro are the legitimate ones. But some scientists find it hard to believe that people would take the time to focus so much of their energy on building terraces if they did not use rice as their main food (as recalled in my previous post.)

Today, rice has to be in every Filipino home, everyday. It is a part of our life, culture, and psyche. Each Pinoy can attest to the fullness and satisfaction of eating rice with every meal. But it doesn't mean we cannot live with all the carbohydrates - many Filipinos working abroad also get used to bread, cheese, couscous, etc. But rice is still our staple food, and for a Pinoy, it's hard to go without it.

 

Source: livingcebuforums

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