Rice in European food

Maciamo said:
Rice has played an important role in European culinary habits for a long time. Risotto has been part of North-Western Italian cuisine since the 14th century, while rice was used in Spain to make dishes such as paella since its introduction by the Arabs in the 8th century. South-Eastern Europeans (Bosnians, Romanians, Greeks, Turks...) eat rice in a variety of dishes, such as pilaf.
Rice thus predates potatoes, which only arrived in 1537 in Europe, but not widespread before the 17th century. Nowadays, naturally, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food have all become so popular that rice is eaten more than potatoes, especially among younger generations of Europeans, and especially in Britain and Latin countries.
But rice has been used in traditional dishes in many European countries, and not just Mediterranean ones. One of the most popular desserts in France is named riz au lait (rice pudding), i.e. rice cooked in sweeten milk, and often eaten with brown sugar. All big dairy product makers, like Danone, Yoplait or Nestle, have their riz au lait, which fill the shelves of any supermarket in France, Switzerland or Belgium. Families often make their own at home, as it is one of the easiest dessert to prepare (just cook rice 45min in milk, maybe some vanilla sweetener and/or an egg, then serve in a bowl and add some brown sugar).
In Belgium, one of the local specialities is the tarte au riz (rice tart), which originally comes from the town of Verviers, between Liege, Maastricht (in the Netherlands) and Aachen (in Germany). You can find it in virtually any Belgian bakery.
There are many other traditional dishes in France and Belgium served with rice (e.g. with a Provencal sauce), and rice is indeed eaten a lot, as the quantities of rice boxes and bags in these countries' supermarkets confirm.
With the emergence of fusion cuisines, with strong Asian influences, rice has a assured future in Europe.


My girlfriend thinks all western food is meat and potatos.

Very unfair i do say so myself, i try to tell her about other european food, and other british dishes, but, her japanese pride blinds her to the fact europes eating habits are as varied if not more so then japans.
 
western food

Well tell your japanese girlfriend that se should see how a lot of japanese
girls are enjoing italian food in our restaurtants in these days in Rome.
100d type of pasta meet fish mashrooms (porcini) may types of
pizza and a good italian wine.....
Some of our plates are a little heavy depends not like the light
japanese cuisine.....anyway every time i go to a jp restaurant
after the meal i have more hungry then before.....ah ah
bye
 
I think when people have no experience or don?ft have enough experiences with people of other cultures they tend to generalize things. Just like the Japanese girl friend of a poster in here who tends to think all Western foods are meat and potatoes, I find that a lot of the Westerners tend to generalize most of the Asians to be Chinese. This is observed from my experiences and experiences of other Asians.:souka:


Especially when white people get mad, even if you are a citizen of the Western country, they tend to say things like ?gGo back to China?h and yet many times these people they think are Chinese are actually Vietnamese, Laotians, Thais, Philippinos, Malays, Indonesians?cetc. :D


Now I have never had that said to me by a Westerner before because Westerners tend to think I am Japanese or Koreans. My conclusion is I don?ft think Western people really know what Chinese look like.


In Italy I had to argue I am not Japanese and people just don?ft believe me. :lol:


The first time I went to Europe with my sister, we had to argue with Western people within the tour group that we are truly sisters. We even had to pull out our passports to prove to them. They pointed out why we are of different nationalities. Well that's because we are immigrants from Malaysia and after we business immigrated to Australia, my sister kept her Malaysian Passport and just remain as a permanent resident of Australia while I changed my nationality to an Australian citizen. We had the same last name as written in the passport at that time to show them.


But now not anymore because after I got married my maiden name is no longer in my passport, so does that mean we are no longer sisters? What?! Also that South African girl actually said to me ?gI don't think you look like a Chinese so therefore you are not one.?h ?gWhat????h I said. Then I said "You have no idea what Chinese people are and how diverse we are.":eek:kashii:
The thing is my sister looks quite different from me, she is tan looking and I am fair looking (pale skin). I mean I look like my father and she looks like my mum, what is so difficult to believe? And within the Chinese race we have so many provinces with different ethnic groups. The faces change from Southern part of China to the Northern part. The Southerners are darker, tanner and tend to look closer to Vietnamese while the Northerners look closer to Koreans and Japanese.:emblaugh:


There was also one incident where some Canadian girl in the tour got robbed in Paris. She claimed a Chinese in Paris robbed her.


I mean how would she know he is a Chinese, since Westerners can?ft tell from Asian to Asian? Generalizing again, not to mention the majority of the Asians in France are Vietnamese.:mad:


I was talking to my husband the other day about going out next Sunday to watch a movie, and he mentioned ?gMemoir of a Geisha,?h then he asked ?gMichelle Yeoh is in it, is she Malay??h


:giggle: I paused and looked at my husband, then I said ?gNow... now, I know your wife me is a Chinese ( just not from China) and I appear very pale, but didn?ft I explain to you there are light skin Chinese and there are tan ones and usually the Southerners are tan and Northerners are pale. I know she was Miss Malaysia when she was young, but Malaysia is a multicultural country and you know this because I have explained to you before, there are 63 percent Malays, 28 percent Chinese and 9 percent Indians. Again I don?ft think Michelle looks like Malay; I don?ft think you know what Chinese or Malay looks like.?h:blush:


So unless more cultural understanding is achieved, these forms of misunderstanding and generalizing will continue.:note:


Lastly no offence to the Westerners of what I said, if I suggest anything offensive that is but don't worry Asians do the same.:p


Well tell your japanese girlfriend that se should see how a lot of japanese
girls are enjoing italian food in our restaurtants in these days in Rome.
100d type of pasta meet fish mashrooms (porcini) may types of
pizza and a good italian wine.....
Some of our plates are a little heavy depends not like the light
japanese cuisine.....anyway every time i go to a jp restaurant
after the meal i have more hungry then before.....ah ah
bye


Due to the cold weather and thus the inability for wheat to grow in Strasbourg, Alsace during the ancient times; people here ate potatoes rather than the baguette as staple food. Then as time has passed, due to the improvement of technology, when they began to be able to access wheat massively they have begun to eat more often the wheat products. Today, the people here besides the potatoes, they tend to eat more pasta and baguette than rice. They even have their own version of pasta, Alsacien pasta. Like I said earlier on in this thread in another post of mine, I don?ft find rice a very common food for the French people here in this province.


Pasta is also very popular in Australia among the European decent Australians as well as the Asian Australians.:bravo: :42:


Speaking of staple foods, I have had an experience where some Westerners think that Asians only eat rice in Ancient times. That is not true. The food style of a culture is certainly first of all determined by the natural resources that are available for its use. For example Chinese food. It is above all characterized by an assemblage of plants and animals that grew prosperously in the Chinese land for a long time. Chinese cooking is the manipulation of these foodstuffs as basic ingredients.


Starch Staples: millet, rice, kao-liang, wheat, maize, buckwheat, yam, sweet potato.


Legumes: soybean, broad bean, pea- nut, mung bean.
Vegetables: malva, amaranth, Chinese cabbage, mustard green, turnip, radish, mushroom.


Fruits: peach, apricot, plum, apple, jujube date, pear, crab apple, mountain haw, longan, litchi, orange.


Meats: pork, dog, beef, mutton, venison, chicken, duck, goose, pheasant, many fishes.


Spices: red pepper, ginger, garlic, spring onion, cinnamon.

:ramen: :gohan: :49: :150: :79:
 
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Minty said:
Just like the Japanese girl friend of a poster in here who tends to think all Western foods are meat and potatoes, I find that a lot of the Westerners tend to generalize most of the Asians to be Chinese.

But most (white-skinned) East Asians are Chinese (over 80% of them, which certainly qualifies as "most").

Due to the cold weather and thus the inability for wheat to grow in Strasbourg, Alsace during the ancient times; people here ate potatoes rather than the baguette as staple food.

There were no potatoes in Europe in ancient times (i.e. until the 5t century or so). They were brought from America in the 16th century, and not widespread until much later. There is more to France than baguette (dozens of other kinds of bread), and Alsace was historically longer part of Germany than France anyway. Bread and potatoes have both been common in France and Germany in the last few hundred years. They do not exclude each others. Potatoes are eaten with warm meals, while bread is more for breakfast...
 
But most (white-skinned) East Asians are Chinese (over 80% of them, which certainly qualifies as "most").


Hmm then you have a different perspective of how most Chinese look, because from my experiences and experiences of others a lot of the South East Asians are mistaken to be Chinese, while the fair skin Chinese like me are mistaken to be Japanese or Korean.

I am not sure whether we have more pale skin Chinese than tan ones. I do know that the Northern Chinese are generally lighter than the Southern Chinese.


But in comparison to South East Asians, Chinese is definitely lighter on average. But it is not just about the skin tones, it is also the faces as well. I don?ft think Chinese look like South East Asians, but Western people seem to have trouble to tell us apart. For example, I know a Swiss guy who is with a Thai woman, he thinks Thai and Chinese look the same, which I disagree.


I think Northern Chinese's appearances are closer to Koreans and Japanese while the Southern Chinese are closer to Vietnamese.


There were no potatoes in Europe in ancient times (i.e. until the 5t century or so). They were brought from America in the 16th century, and not widespread until much later.


My mistake I shouldn?ft have said ?gancient times?h but ?gin the past.?h


There is more to France than baguette (dozens of other kinds of bread), and Alsace was historically longer part of Germany than France anyway. Bread and potatoes have both been common in France and Germany in the last few hundred years. They do not exclude each others.


I know about the many different kinds of French breads but baguette is the most common one that people buy, all over the place in the hypermarket I see people with baguette more often than other kinds of breads.


Potatoes are eaten with warm meals, while bread is more for breakfast...


Yes I notice the French like croissants or petite pains or different kinds of French breads with confiture and butter for breakfast. I don?ft eat breakfast though.


I am married to a Frenchman and for dinner very often at my husband?fs family and friends?f place they serve potatoes or French breads or Alsacien pastas as side dishes for dinner. My husband has also taken me to a lot of different types of French restaurants, and for every meal it is accompanied with fresh French bread on the side, except from memory the dish ?gTarte flambee.?h


I think the French eat just as much bread for dinner/lunch as they do for breakfast. But I am told the traditional dishes of this province are with potatoes rather than with French breads.
 
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Here in Portugal, rice is a very important suplement, seen that we have it almost every meal. Whether it is with meat, fish, or just vegetables. We eat it in a lot of different ways and many times we eat rice and potatoes together with something else (which I consider a mistake).
 
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and sometimes other ingredients. Different variants are used for either desserts or dinners. When used as a dessert, it is commonly combined with a sweetener.
 
Rice is my favorite dish so I like this recipe!
I want to make such a dish with a rice!
 
Rice with milk we usually eat at home sometimes. The paella that is a Valencian dish but that has long been adopted by all Spaniards in their diet. Rice with asparagus. Non dry dried rice with peeled prawns, squid is like a paella but more simplified.

Potatoes I would eat every day. We have the salmorejo that in Cordoba as a gazpacho base but in the province of Cádiz with that term we have a dish based on cooked potato, with boiled egg, spring onion, parsley and seasoned with olive oil and vinegar, a kind of salad of potato

We also have a dish called arroz a la cubana, which is boiled rice passed through the pan to make it more tasty, tomato sauce and on top of the mountain a fried egg and two salsichas.
In the traditional stew in the broth you can put noodles or very little rice so that the broth does not thicken.

arroz-caldoso-de-rape-y-langostinos.jpeg

Sticky rice with monkfish and shrimp. It can be done in a thousand ways, prawns and squid, prawns and peas, e.t.c.
 
Rice with milk we usually eat at home sometimes. The paella that is a Valencian dish but that has long been adopted by all Spaniards in their diet. Rice with asparagus. Non dry dried rice with peeled prawns, squid is like a paella but more simplified.

Potatoes I would eat every day. We have the salmorejo that in Cordoba as a gazpacho base but in the province of Cádiz with that term we have a dish based on cooked potato, with boiled egg, spring onion, parsley and seasoned with olive oil and vinegar, a kind of salad of potato

We also have a dish called arroz a la cubana, which is boiled rice passed through the pan to make it more tasty, tomato sauce and on top of the mountain a fried egg and two salsichas.
In the traditional stew in the broth you can put noodles or very little rice so that the broth does not thicken.

arroz-caldoso-de-rape-y-langostinos.jpeg

Sticky rice with monkfish and shrimp. It can be done in a thousand ways, prawns and squid, prawns and peas, e.t.c.

It all looks and sounds delicious. I love rice, and potatoes. Really like Spanish and Portuguese food in general. The only thing I quibble with is how in some areas and restaurants the beef and lamb are too well done. I'm with the French: unless you're stewing it, it should be no more than medium rare. Italians are sometimes guilty of overcooking these meats too.

gigot-agneau-romarin-ail-5473.jpg


My mother often made me a "soup" of hot milk and rice with butter and sugar and sometimes a bit of cinnamon when I came in from the cold, sort of a very milky rice pudding :)

Minestra di riso al latte: a little misjudgment there as it needs more milk.

zuppalatte.jpg
 
I have no idea why people enjoy eating rice. White rice doesn't have taste, just full of carbohydrates.
I really enjoy much more traditional European food, with history of 5 thousand years at least. Long live BUCKWHEAT!!!
 
Can't talk to a man who would prefer buckwheat (yuck) to risotto and paella. :)
IMG_0322.JPG


Your WHG and EHG ancestors ate a ton of seafood and fish. This should be right up your alley.
Risotto-pescatora.jpg

Don't yell at me if it's not authentic enough, Carlo. :)

paellavalenciana.jpg



I guess you turn up your nose to Amerindian potatoes too? Not me. I bless them every time I eat them. :)
IMG_1149.JPG



Seriously, I don't know much about buckwheat, but rice has the ability to absorb incredible amounts of flavor from the foods with which it is mixed. As for "Chinese" white rice, I would have to agree with you. I don't see the point of it. To me, it's dry as dust. I only eat roast pork fried rice, which is, of course, much more fattening. :) Thank God for a good metabolism.

IMG_1530.jpg
 
I'm not lying when I say this but I tend to buy an extra container of white rice when I buy Chinese to have as a snack later on when I feel hungry at night. I don't know why I like it but I just do, maybe it's the texture
 
^^To each their own. I use it to make the rice, milk, sugar soup I pictured above, or Sicilian fried rice balls.

pubblica-7.jpg


Technically, they should be made with arborio rice, but waste not want not, as they say.

Taste in food is as different as attraction in mates.

Whatever makes you happy is my motto.
 
I'm not lying when I say this but I tend to buy an extra container of white rice when I buy Chinese to have as a snack later on when I feel hungry at night. I don't know why I like it but I just do, maybe it's the texture

I've never eaten a bowl of white rice. Pork fried rice only. (Rarely)
Chinese Chihuahua Isotope. LOL
 
img_arroz_a_la_cubana_12777_600.jpg


arroz_a_la_cubana.jpg


Cuban rice is a dish that children like very much, also to the elderly. It is a dish of Cuban cuisine of Spanish origin. I do not remember it in my children's diet, but in the 80's It came back from nothing and became very popular. At the beginning it was made with banana but then the bananas were replaced by sausages, in other latitudes I would like with bacon strips. Children love rice simply boiled and mix everything, but if you pass the rice a little in the pan better, at least for an adult.
 
Some brilliant mind has converted the "pasta alla gricia" (a Lazio and center-italian typical recipe) in a risotto.
I haven't experienced it yet, but the temptation is strong.

Here it is.

Ingredients for 2 people

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
• Pork cheek (“Guanciale di maiale”), 120 g;
• Carnaroli rice, 120 g;
• Pecorino Romano cheese, 50 g;
• Black pepper, abundant;
• Salt to taste.
• Chicken broth 350 ml.

Preparation

Slice the pork cheek into strips. In a saucepan, brown it with soft flame so that it loses a large part of its fat and become crispy. Then remove it from the pan, keeping aside all the fat filtering it with a strainer: it will serve to stir in the risotto.

Toast the rice in the same saucepan without adding fat until it becomes translucent. Sprinkle it with a glass of wine and add a ladle of the chicken stock at a time and cook (about 16 minutes).

Whip the risotto with the pecorino cheese, the butter and the cheek fat, adjusting it with the stock in order to obtain a perfect consistency. Serve the rice in a plate and sprinkle it with plenty of minced black pepper.

Complete the plate with the strip cheek in the center.

This is the original link for the recipe
https://chefincamicia.com/ricette/primi/risotto-alla-gricia/

Enjoy your meal! ;)
 
Some brilliant mind has converted the "pasta alla gricia" (a Lazio and center-italian typical recipe) in a risotto.
I haven't experienced it yet, but the temptation is strong.

Here it is.

Ingredients for 2 people

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
• Pork cheek (“Guanciale di maiale”), 120 g;
• Carnaroli rice, 120 g;
• Pecorino Romano cheese, 50 g;
• Black pepper, abundant;
• Salt to taste.
• Chicken broth 350 ml.

Preparation

Slice the pork cheek into strips. In a saucepan, brown it with soft flame so that it loses a large part of its fat and become crispy. Then remove it from the pan, keeping aside all the fat filtering it with a strainer: it will serve to stir in the risotto.

Toast the rice in the same saucepan without adding fat until it becomes translucent. Sprinkle it with a glass of wine and add a ladle of the chicken stock at a time and cook (about 16 minutes).

Whip the risotto with the pecorino cheese, the butter and the cheek fat, adjusting it with the stock in order to obtain a perfect consistency. Serve the rice in a plate and sprinkle it with plenty of minced black pepper.

Complete the plate with the strip cheek in the center.

This is the original link for the recipe
https://chefincamicia.com/ricette/primi/risotto-alla-gricia/

Enjoy your meal! ;)

Brilliant indeed. :) I'm making it tomorrow. Well, I'll make it if I can find guanciale.

Oh, the hell with it, I'll use pancetta if I have to...
 
Brilliant indeed. :) I'm making it tomorrow. Well, I'll make it if I can find guanciale.

Oh, the hell with it, I'll use pancetta if I have to...

Eheh... good job: guanciale is a product not always on hand.
In this case it's better not to be too purist: a smoked pancetta of good quality can be a valid substitute
 

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