Harvest Time
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 by Dr Maytel
It's rice harvest time here in Southeast Asia, and courtesy of Hock's Sous Chef who just returned from his holidays back home to Isaan (aka Esarn, Isan, Isarn), we received around 25 kgs of fresh hom malis rice, commonly known as jasmin. Similar to freshly dug potatoes, it is so fresh it requires far less water and time for cooking than your common-all-supermarket-rice.
He told Hock that the rice is "organic" but given that it arrived in a fertiliser bag I have my doubts. The term "organic" in Thailand is generally used in a far more flexible sense. A lot of products here are labelled "organic" when they would not necessarily meet European or American organic standards. Hock's Sous Chef is rather pragmatic about the whole issue. He says that he grows "organic" whenever he can, but if the crop is likely to fail or be severely diminished by unfavourable weather conditions he'll give it a little man-made push along. It's a topic that Nalika may like to expound on further at a later date, given that its the subject of some research she is doing.
He told Hock that the rice is "organic" but given that it arrived in a fertiliser bag I have my doubts. The term "organic" in Thailand is generally used in a far more flexible sense. A lot of products here are labelled "organic" when they would not necessarily meet European or American organic standards. Hock's Sous Chef is rather pragmatic about the whole issue. He says that he grows "organic" whenever he can, but if the crop is likely to fail or be severely diminished by unfavourable weather conditions he'll give it a little man-made push along. It's a topic that Nalika may like to expound on further at a later date, given that its the subject of some research she is doing.
