I had only recently found out that in the 1980s, the Thailand government purportedly sent a few of their agricultural people to the Philippines to leverage on our advancement in rice production. The Thais then studied under the able tutelage of the International Rice Research Institute based in the country. Decades later, the “teacher” who in the past boasted of being a predominantly agricultural nation had lost its mojo in this very aspect while the “students” had taken what science they learned to advanced heights. To reinforce our country’s plummet to rice-farming Loserville, the Philippines is now one of the world’s top importer of rice. What happened to us and our rice themed glory days?
In Bangkok just the other day, I had seen with my own two eyes an example of how advanced the Thais had become in this aspect. Locally, I’m aware of the rice varieties that are so named depending on the length of time in days when they are already “ripe” for harvesting (like the so called IR-64, IR-32, and so forth). And then there’s the “malagkit” variety. I grew up buying rice from the stalls of the closest wet market from home when I was a kid so I know these things but nothing prepared me for what I saw in Bangkok’s Carrefour’s rice section.
Photos after the jump.
When my ex-boss told me that the Thais have rice in various colors including blue and green, seeing these with my own two eyes made me realize she wasn’t exaggerating.
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13 May 2008 at 4:18 am
I learned about that lil piece of history in…i forgot what class. Under the Marcos regime ba?
i am eating pizza right now. also, walang feeeenk rice, fail.
13 May 2008 at 4:24 am
I hated my history classes so I remembered nothing. May fuschia naman e o! Win! The Thai friend, Big, saw these pics and said, “we have those?!?!” LULZ
13 May 2008 at 5:51 am
i wonder how the blue rice tastes.
i’ve only tried eating the black rice from ilocos and the green rice from persia.
the yellow rice looks like the java rice served on sizzling plates in the philippines.
=)
13 May 2008 at 6:39 am
wow. what do they put in those? here, i only see that we have the “red” rice aside from the usual. but blue, yellow, fuschia??? the green looks like monggo from a distance. lol :p
13 May 2008 at 8:17 am
I’m curious to try the green one. It looks yummy, like pesto rice.
13 May 2008 at 9:34 am
The yellows remind me of curry rice.
And are you allowed to mix it up so you have rainbow rice? I bet that shit taste like good deeds from cute kittens on a cool day.
13 May 2008 at 9:57 am
I’m colorblind so I think what I meant by fuschia now looks more like plum. The are all rice.
13 May 2008 at 10:05 am
I dun think so. I was made to assume that each color has a distinct flavor and taste/consistency. They don’t sell mixed ones, too.
13 May 2008 at 10:08 am
I knew I should have at least asked what each variant has to offer. They were right there in front of me. Or I could have tried smelling it. OR, I could have tasted it raw like what old ladies would do in the wet market (which still perplexes me to this day. I mean how can they judge rice by eating a raw grain right?!)
13 May 2008 at 10:10 am
Do we not come up with black rice by mixing squid ink with ordinary rice? LOL re java rice.
13 May 2008 at 11:11 am
Whoa, I’d like to eat green rice so I’d feel my cowness. So, you’d just have to buy different colors and mix them together?
13 May 2008 at 11:46 am
I think they cook them in batches and by color. Besides, those things are hella expensive! 85 baht per Kg translated to around PHP114. Again, that’s per Kg!
13 May 2008 at 12:41 pm
wow. this is amazing. it’s like they’ve taken rice production to an entirely different level. waaaaay higher than us.
13 May 2008 at 1:21 pm
I want the blue rice.
If you mix the blue rice and the yellow rice together, will it become green rice? BAH! They don’t need to do that coz they already have green rice.
Saaad for the Philippines.
13 May 2008 at 1:28 pm
@Penny Lane and @Ria Jose I have more stories about Thailand which I learned from different people there, both locals and expats. I’ll write about them alternately with other subjects para hindi nakakaumay.
13 May 2008 at 1:39 pm
And you say your blog is boring. :P
13 May 2008 at 1:39 pm
the catalog is endless. durian, sampaloc, they’ve learned from us. here at home, to buy canned or powdered coconut milk, you buy thai. they killed our nata de coco industry too, i believe.
13 May 2008 at 2:26 pm
Seriously for durian and sampaloc?! The key take away from all of this is we can pick up where we slacked and be great based on record. Five days in Bangkok had been great. Made me want to live there. Sorry if I sound unpatriotic. XD
13 May 2008 at 3:07 pm
I think the green rice matches with Chicken Curry and the blue rice with.. Dinuguan?
Oh yeah, those years were the times when our country’s still one of the prosperous and advanced countries in Asia.
13 May 2008 at 5:52 pm
I-partner ba! Dinuguan with a hint of blue kind of looks weird. LULZ
13 May 2008 at 8:53 pm
nice thoughts! and i actually like your ideas about that colorful rice. ngaun ko lang nalaman na rice can be that such colorful. hmmm. weird.
oh well, i’ve already added you as my link! :]
and here’s my url:
chazzelislife.blogspot.com
if you have the time, you can visit it and i hope we will be able to exchange some comments :].
thanks a lot!!!
13 May 2008 at 9:27 pm
To think that Thais and Pinoys look alike. Have a Thai beside a Pinoy and you won’t see the difference. Unless you spray paint that this with blue, green, yellow… and the Pinoy? Let him be… rugged. Okay, that was a stupid comment :)
I browsed my Dad’s grad booklet and yes, so many Thais in the agriculture department. I guess Thais are already laughing what with the abysmal status of our rice industry. Yung bigasan nga sa province namin, hmmm :(
I wonder how they colorized the grains… modified the rice variety’s genes or soaked then in organic dye or…
13 May 2008 at 9:29 pm
*that Thai
13 May 2008 at 10:01 pm
Is that really blue rice or did a smurf fall into a grinder?
13 May 2008 at 10:50 pm
A Smurf falling into a grinder makes more sense than seeing blue rice up close like seriously.
13 May 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’ll ask a Thai friend to look into it. The color in these photos were not enhanced in any way so they really look this way. Whether dyed or natural, blue looks weird on any food item IMHO.
13 May 2008 at 10:59 pm
Thanks for droppin by chazzel! Wait, was that streaming music I heard from your site? LULZ. Also, the site you linked to is my old site. :D
14 May 2008 at 8:15 am
hi fritz… naku, bata ka pa nga… haha
yep, thais and other neigboring countries in asia used to send their experts here to study at IRRI during the Marcos era.
we were the no. 1 rice producer in the region back then (since the 1950s).. and in the 60s era, we were No. 2 in economic development next only to Japan…
those were the days… sad, isn’t it?
14 May 2008 at 11:39 am
There’s this person searching for “thais learned from US rice” string that got led to this entry. To that person, man, they learned from the Philippines! Thanks for the factoids, Jojo! Politics and mismanagement screwed us up, bigtime. Those fuckers.
15 May 2008 at 2:32 am
squid ink? ampf. haha.
black rice from ilocos is tasty though
15 May 2008 at 2:54 pm
LULZ I get a red rice picture in my mind when people say black rice, and the picture closely resembles squid ink rice is why. I think black rice goes well with really great adobo or dried fish *hunger!*
18 May 2008 at 9:04 pm
colored rice…interesting… so interesting that I had to google it. Found a related post, they add the color during the processing(milling?) of the rice(ex. to produce yellow, add turmeric).
Here is the url if anybody is interested: http://maejj2.blogspot.com/2008/02/color-rice-from-thailand.html
19 May 2008 at 1:16 pm
Nice one, newbiereader. Thanks for the link! The blue rice when cooked looks weird, though LOL