OF RICE AND MEN :
HALF OF THE POPULATION OF THE PLANET EATS RICE WITH SPICES…
AND IT’S DELICIOUS

Would you like to eat a delicious little plate of caryopsis stemming from an herbaceous monocotyledon rich in starch? – What? Ah! Excuse me! I mean rich in proteins, nutrients, fibers, magnesium, vitamin B and of course in starch. Excellent defense against diabetes, diarrhea, cancer, cardio-vascular disease and free radicals. Are you a doctor or a cook? – A cook therefore a doctor.

My prescription: eat bio and whole meal, like half the world’s populations have done for thousands of years and you will be happy in your later years, active and supple, like so many people in Asia, from Northern China to Southern Indonesia. Just think – The inhabitants of these countries are eating more than 100kg per year, when we are satisfied with around 5 kg per year. Yuk – boiled rice, no thanks.

No ! Not that ! But Japanese sushi or mochi, Korean bibimbap, Cantonese rice, Indonesian nasi goreng, sticky Thai rice, carry rice from Reunion Island, Indian biryani, Kashmiri pulao, Uzbek plov, Iranian chelo rice, pilaf, risotto and paella… Unctuous mounds made golden with olive oil, mixed with onions, tomatoes or dried fruits, cooked with a bouillon of chicken or vegetables, flavored with garlic, ginger, thyme, and bay leaves, enhanced with basil, cardamom, curry, coriander, marjoram, rosemary, turmeric, strands of saffron, peppers, lemon grass, tarragon, mushrooms, soy sauce, mirin rice wine, turmeric is for the color!

What’s the name of your association again? Yum Yum? Miou-Miou? Miam –Miam. And you teach what? Rice from A to Z in one weekend. The basics, little recipes, larger dishes.

So between ourselves can you give an example?

One of hundreds. Basic Asian rice. Wash it until the water runs clear (about five times). Boil it quickly for 5 minutes in twice it’s volume of water with a piece of kombu seaweed. Then lower the heat and cover with a lid which should not be lifted, for 10 minutes. Switch of the heat and allow the rice to continue cooking and swelling in its steam without lifting the lid another 10 minutes. Carefully add two spoons of sugar and one of salt dissolved in four spoons of rice vinegar. Leave it to marinate in its steam with the lid on and you have sushi rice which is so popular and costs so much in Japanese restaurants (more simply use a rice cooker and a readymade sushi mixture which you can find in Asian food shops). Or you can invite your friends to a Chinese, Korean, Indian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Italian, Armenian or Lebanese meals.

Rice, like the color black, goes with everything. Fish, meat, vegetables, but never without spices.

With spices you transform rice, pasta, potatoes. You reveal them? You their flavors consistency and virtues! But without spices ah! It’s as though you lost your taste buds and ate nothing but food pastes for the rest of your days. Animal paste, vegetable pastes, paste paste, in tins or tubes.

Brrr you give me the shivers Mr Du Cros, tell me about your courses!

It’s very simple. You arrive Thursday evening or Saturday midday, alone or with your partner in a pretty pastoral village in the Cevennes, 65 km north of Montpellier. With the other students we are about 12 people in an arched 12th century kitchen. We review spices by smell taste and enjoyment. Between two practical exercises, a drink in the garden, a walk in the woods, or a siesta in the grass. Rice and spices you see is “slow-food”

How do I register for your courses Mr du Cros?

Consult our website and send us an email or a letter
Yours sincerely and see you soon on the Miam Miam courses in Aulas
Patrick du Cros