Jasmine rice.............what's the big deal?

[bander]

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I myself much prefer Basmati,flavour and fluffy grains,i do eat Thai rice but my wife does not buy Jasmine, but some other type,she to cooks it in the rice cooker,it's okay but i do find as you say it tends to stick together and you have to kind of gently chop away at it with a spoon to break it up,the sticky rice i do not like at all,but for me Basmati is the best.

Does anybody know if they sell Basmati in Thailand? If yes, where?

[Foxter]

My Thai wife always buys the most expensive rice now that she's married to a falang...........Jasmine Homale and to be honest, I find it the most tasteless rice there is. A lot of my dislike to it is that she always puts too much water and it ends up being a [tasteless] sticky goo that 20% is left stuck to the rice cooker pot.

I'm sure a lot of her preference for it is the fact that her father grows the famous Jasmine rice on his farm in Issan and he sells his whole crop to the buyers, then for the family he buys the cheapest broken rice.

I was raised in a rice culture [Hawaii] and we used Calrose, a California grown version of a Japanese rice that has some texture and decent flavor and then there is Basmati rice that actually does have some flavor and texture. Jasmine to me is totally overrated.

I also like some of the many colored rices that are grown..............black, brown and red with a lot more texture than the mushy white rice.

Thanks for listening to my 'Thai Rice Rant'..............

Cook it yourself, get a rice cooker , a cup or any measure of rice with exactly the same amount of water . Done

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[nidieunimaitre]

When we are in Europe, my wife (Thai) would never buy Thai rice - always Basmati!

[IMA_FARANG]

The "taste" of Rice can vary greatly depending on how it's cooked.

Be aware that as a "Farang" you can't possibly know what "good rice" is. Or so your wife will tell you. Many Thai wives were taught as children the "correct" way to cook Rice, and trying to mess with that to get the Rice cooked the way you like it is bound to cause problems in your house.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's like as an American trying to tell a Brit what the correct way to brew a "proper cuppa " tea is..... that kind of an argument.

[jaideeguy]

Agree IMA...........................I never said or implied that the Thai wife cooked rice the 'wrong' way. I said that she didn't cook it to my liking. She learned from her mom and I learned from my mom and as we all know............moms are always right and can do no wrong!!

[nidieunimaitre]

Always the same story.

A product is good, so many buy it, next price goes up, next imitation becomes profitable and even the original supplier goes for the quick money.

And those marketing people (and other swindlers) know that consumers believe that high price = quality.

Hommali Thai rice - Italian wines - Greek fetta - Mattheus rosee - and so on, the list is endless.

The list also includes Basmati, I wish I could buy the same quality as 20 years ago.

[meatboy]

Can tell the difference right away, by the aroma.

Any rice can be cooked to perfection. And, like wine, some rices go better with certain foods.

A nuttier flavored brown rice ...heavy in texture and flavor...may be more suited for...say a Roasted, seasoned Leg of Lamb....in a rice Pilaf.... While Jasmine would be best with certain mild Curries.

Japanese varieties (short grained) are very good, and tend to be easier to eat with chopsticks.... best when topped with some stirfry.

Non-afficianados probably will not care much which type they are eating. Many farangs scoff at rice all together, forcing their wives to eat greasy, unappealing chips (french fries) or limp mashed potatoes with butter and greasy gravy... ewwwwwwww

greasy,unappealing chips,limp mashed potatoes,with butter,and greasy gravy,i don't remember you coming to my house.

did we have a greasy leg of lamb? or was it a 16oz sirloin greasy steak?

[kinmaew]

Here here brother. Thais seem to be able to live on a few cents a day "Pre Farang" and seem quite happy with that.

[thailand49]

To put in nicely your "wife" only knows what she has grown up knowing. I too being Asian... from experience believe what you like! but maybe find a tactful way to showing her or even better taking on some serious responsibility of maybe cooking for the family from time to time.

I will generalize but this is the 21st century it might be time to stop being a Sumarai and start to help out like cleaning, cooking, etc..instead of ranting! my mother use to tell me in Hawaii? " if you don't like it do it yourself "

Last, Jaideeguy! what bothers you? how she can't make rice or spending too much of your money? Jaideeguy?

[jaideeguy]

To put in nicely your "wife" only knows what she has grown up knowing. I too being Asian... from experience believe what you like! but maybe find a tactful way to showing her or even better taking on some serious responsibility of maybe cooking for the family from time to time.

FYI, I do at least 50% of the cooking anyway because I enjoy my own comfort foods and just creating new flavors.

I will generalize but this is the 21st century it might be time to stop being a Sumarai and start to help out like cleaning, cooking, etc..instead of ranting! my mother use to tell me in Hawaii? " if you don't like it do it yourself "

Aloha, I'm from Hawaii too and I do cook, clean and other non 'samurai' chores as well as paying all the bills, managing the money, being the taxi driver, medical consultant and too many other chores to mention so please don't accuse me of being a 'samurai guy'.

Last, Jaideeguy! what bothers you? how she can't make rice or spending too much of your money? Jaideeguy?

Both, altho not really bothered by her gooey over cooked rice..................just commenting.

As far as the money thing, I was raised by parents that taught me not to waste money [and we always had some] and she was raised by parents that didn't teach her to not waste and they were middle class Thais, but wasted all their money and passed that trait along to their kids and they all live hand to mouth with not a baht in the bank.

A very common situation here in LOS................poor money management.

[cheeryble]

Don't like rice and take pleasure in watching Thai faces when I tell them his blasphemous fact.

[thailand49]

To put in nicely your "wife" only knows what she has grown up knowing. I too being Asian... from experience believe what you like! but maybe find a tactful way to showing her or even better taking on some serious responsibility of maybe cooking for the family from time to time.

FYI, I do at least 50% of the cooking anyway because I enjoy my own comfort foods and just creating new flavors.

I will generalize but this is the 21st century it might be time to stop being a Sumarai and start to help out like cleaning, cooking, etc..instead of ranting! my mother use to tell me in Hawaii? " if you don't like it do it yourself "

Aloha, I'm from Hawaii too and I do cook, clean and other non 'samurai' chores as well as paying all the bills, managing the money, being the taxi driver, medical consultant and too many other chores to mention so please don't accuse me of being a 'samurai guy'.

Last, Jaideeguy! what bothers you? how she can't make rice or spending too much of your money? Jaideeguy?

Both, altho not really bothered by her gooey over cooked rice..................just commenting.

As far as the money thing, I was raised by parents that taught me not to waste money [and we always had some] and she was raised by parents that didn't teach her to not waste and they were middle class Thais, but wasted all their money and passed that trait along to their kids and they all live hand to mouth with not a baht in the bank.

A very common situation here in LOS................poor money management.

I agree and I think you agree too except maybe not 100%?

Regardless of where or what class they are especially if they are not rich and highly educated one or the other? They as I noted do what they have been taught.

As for money management there was just a survey or study that confirm that the Thais in general have no money management skills.confirming what already have seen for years here.

Many people talk about eating Brown rice etc.. as we know is really better for you but is slightly more expensive and to Thai that makes a big difference. I have seen Thais get on a motor bike or walk in the hot sun because one place was charging 1 baht too much for a Leo beer.

It does not seem it is the cost of the rice that bothers you but how she makes it? You will be sleeping alone if you handle this wrong come straight out and say she does not know how to make rice. Instead find a way to help out and say I'll make the rice tonight and ask her to show you but then comment the water level might be too high? that take some out?

[jaideeguy]

"Instead find a way to help out and say I'll make the rice tonight and ask her to show you but then comment the water level might be too high? that take some out?"

Yeah, tried that and her comment was that my rice is too hard. We just have different tastes in rice.......also she likes her eggs cooked Thai style. fried super hot in a half inch of oil [in a teflon pan].

Not that big of a problem, but my OP was just wondering of other's experience same.

[thailand49]

"Instead find a way to help out and say I'll make the rice tonight and ask her to show you but then comment the water level might be too high? that take some out?"

Yeah, tried that and her comment was that my rice is too hard. We just have different tastes in rice.......also she likes her eggs cooked Thai style. fried super hot in a half inch of oil [in a teflon pan].

Not that big of a problem, but my OP was just wondering of other's experience same.

Then we are basically back to square one? Everyone has their own taste growing up what they know and like best as I have noted. Just like Pizza here have not found any that I like grew up liking a particular style and the thin crust stuff do not do it for me along with so many other stuff put on pizza here. Your wife sounds she like her rice like Congee 555? based on that no matter how expensive or how cheap the rice she is going to make it with too much water. The best you could do is when she isn't looking take a cup and scope some water out what she does not know will not hurt her.

I remember my dad needed to cut back on salt... He complaint to my mom she was not using enough before he even tasted the food he put salt on it. I told my mom go back going with what he likes after a week start each day cutting back just a little after a month she was hardly even using any and my dad couldn't tell the difference went on and on how good her cooking was and how much better the food taste with salt.. I nearly choke on my rice?

Edited May 14, 2014 by thailand49

[jaideeguy]

"The best you could do is when she isn't looking take a cup and scope some water out what she does not know will not hurt her."

GREAT IDEA!!

[DavidBensen]

I have a degree in Psychology, and thitohelps me to understand how a Thai woman's mind thinks....

Many of these girls have gone days, months, even years not having enough to eat. My Thai girlfriend tells me she spent a year eating mostly just rice, and loss weight, was gaunt and never had much energy. I've gone hungry for a few days, and I know what that has done to the way I think.

I think that for Thai girls who have been in poverty and seen poverty most of their life, want to feel they won't go hungry. Being able to buy the best (and let's face it, buying the best here in Thailand is to Westerners still cheap to us) makes them think, and then feel, that they have escaped poverty. Rice is cheap here, and for me, helping my girl feel like she can buy the best rice so she feels like she has gone passed poverty, is figuratively and literally a small price to pay for someone I love.

If she cant cook the way i like, i'd cook it, and ask her doe she like the way i cook it. Then i'd show her how to cook it that way, and because deep inside Thai girls want to make their man happy, i'd imagine she'd cook it the way we both like.

I think it's important for Westerners to assimiliate as much as possible into the culture and customs of the people and land where they choose to live, but where we can help to raise Thai peoples standard of thinking because of different ways of thinking ... if we truly care and love Thai people and this land ... we also have a duty to introduce new ways of thinking that help.

[thailiketoo]

I have a degree in Psychology, and thitohelps me to understand how a Thai woman's mind thinks....

Many of these girls have gone days, months, even years not having enough to eat. My Thai girlfriend tells me she spent a year eating mostly just rice, and loss weight, was gaunt and never had much energy. I've gone hungry for a few days, and I know what that has done to the way I think.

I think that for Thai girls who have been in poverty and seen poverty most of their life, want to feel they won't go hungry. Being able to buy the best (and let's face it, buying the best here in Thailand is to Westerners still cheap to us) makes them think, and then feel, that they have escaped poverty. Rice is cheap here, and for me, helping my girl feel like she can buy the best rice so she feels like she has gone passed poverty, is figuratively and literally a small price to pay for someone I love.

If she cant cook the way i like, i'd cook it, and ask her doe she like the way i cook it. Then i'd show her how to cook it that way, and because deep inside Thai girls want to make their man happy, i'd imagine she'd cook it the way we both like.

I think it's important for Westerners to assimiliate as much as possible into the culture and customs of the people and land where they choose to live, but where we can help to raise Thai peoples standard of thinking because of different ways of thinking ... if we truly care and love Thai people and this land ... we also have a duty to introduce new ways of thinking that help.

Thailand has never had a food problem. No one has ever starved in Thailand. Look at the ground. There is wasted food everywhere. Famine in India and Vietnam and the other places that were colonized but never Thailand. To an Issan girl being lost in the jungle means the same as being lost in a grocery store to the Western woman. Bugs, scorpions and snakes; a few weeds and we have soup time.

Edited May 15, 2014 by thailiketoo

[jaideeguy]

So true TLT................my wife and kids eat what they want. Money is no issue when it comes to food, yet she still loves her bugs and weeds. Just last night she was chasing the Mang Mao...............a termite that emerges from the ground after the early rains and flies to the nearest light and wife places a bowl of water under the light and scoops them up in the morning. She sometimes will just sit by a termite nest with chopsticks and pick the best as they emerge from a hole in the ground.

[lvr181]

I have a degree in Psychology, and thitohelps me to understand how a Thai woman's mind thinks....

I think it's important for Westerners to assimiliate as much as possible into the culture and customs of the people and land where they choose to live, but where we can help to raise Thai peoples standard of thinking because of different ways of thinking ... if we truly care and love Thai people and this land ... we also have a duty to introduce new ways of thinking that help.

Is it really necessary to assimilate? But to understand and be empathetic would be helpful.

[debrakfurlow]

I've used Jasmine for years. Reduce the water and as soon as the rice is done turn it off and stir the rice from the bottom to the top. I hate mushy rice. I do use a cooker.

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