Rice, It’s What the Philippines Eats!
by Donna Amis Davis / @DonnaAmisDavis
Living and working in the Philippines for the last 30-plus years, I can’t help but think about RICE. I propose that the Filipino has a different relationship with rice than does the average non-Asian-heritage American.
Seven Clues About Filipinos and Rice:
I’ll share seven of the clues that led me to this conclusion. See if you agree with me.
Clue Number One
My first clue about that came back when I was in college, and still living in the U.S. I was helping my Filipino-American friend cook in her parents’ kitchen. Looking for a garbage can to toss something into, I opened the pantry door, and saw a large plastic trashcan on the floor. “No,” said Marilyn, “that’s not it.” What was in that can? Rice. It was full of rice. I’d never seen so much rice in one place in my life. Marilyn’s family bought their rice in 50-pound sacks. OK, this family must like rice a lot, I thought. Clue Number One.
Clue Number Two
Then, during our first year in the Philippines, we lived in Lipa City, Batangas to study Tagalog. The husband of one of our Tagalog teachers owned a rice stall in the local market. A whole store-front devoted solely to selling rice? There is no equivalent in my home country. Clue Number Two.
Clue Number Three
Filipinos eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And never get tired of it. Filipinos say they don’t feel like they’ve eaten until they have rice. At a kid’s birthday party, guests will be served fried chicken and spaghetti, but that is just considered a snack because there is no rice. Clue Number Three.
Clue Number Four
The local laws reflect the Filipinos’ reliance on rice as food. An employee can be compensated up to 1500 pesos a month tax-free for “rice allowance.” If you hire live-in domestic help, you are responsible for providing them all the rice that they need. Clue Number Four.
Clue Number Five
If you are a Filipino reading this, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. But try to imagine my surprise, when I went back to a tiny town in Iowa, to help my mother in her last months, and couldn’t find any rice in the grocery store there! I looked and looked. Up one aisle and down another. I was looking for rice in a one or two-pound bag, as is commonly found in grocery stores in California. Nope. None. I finally asked a store employee for help. “Do you have any rice?”
“Sure, we do.” So he led me to an aisle I’d already searched, and pointed to the box of Uncle Ben’s. Um. I don’t consider that rice. Sorry. Apparently in Ida Grove, Iowa in the heartland of the United States, rice is not on the menu too much. Clue Number 5.
Clue Number Six
This week I went to the local water district office to pay a disputed water bill. Banners on the front wall of the compound described various promotions the water district offered that month. There were raffle prizes listed for people who connected to the water district lines for the first time. There were raffle prizes for those who paid bills in arrears. And the biggest raffle prizes were for those who reconnected their lines to the water company. The prizes? A cell phone and a 50-kilo sack of rice. That’s Clue Number 6.
Clue Number Seven
And finally, what is Clue Number 7? A popular restaurant franchise advertises UNLIMITED RICE with their meals. Our visitors from the U.S. think that is funny. I guess they don’t see all-the-rice-you-can-eat as a huge selling point for some reason?
Now, you’ve heard it from me, Donna on Palawan, an American expat who’s been in the Philippines since 1981. I think Filipinos have a different relationship with rice than do non-Asian-heritage Americans. But I’m not a Filipino. So what does a Filipino say about the Philippines’ relationship with rice? Check out the link below. This guy calls Filipinos ‘Rice-ivores.’ Hey, he said it, not me.
See Mikey Bustos’ take on Filipinos and their rice: Filipino Dining Tutorial by Mikey Bustos.
https://www.donnaamisdavis.com/rice-philippines/Puerto Princesa & PalawanRestaurants & FoodDonna Amis Davis,Palawan,Philippines,tourism,travel,Travel and Tourismby Donna Amis Davis / @DonnaAmisDavis Living and working in the Philippines for the last 30-plus years, I can't help but think about RICE. I propose that the Filipino has a different relationship with rice than does the average non-Asian-heritage American. Seven Clues About Filipinos and Rice: I'll share seven of the...Donna Amis DavisDonna Amis Davis[email protected]AdministratorDonna Amis Davis
I’ll never forget the pot luck I attended with you, Donna. You brought a pot of cooked meat and everyone else brought….rice!
I know, Quirky. I didn’t even get into that here – how the Palawanos often eat rice.period. Just rice, with a sprinkling of rock salt on the top. I think soon I’m going to talk about poverty and the simplicity of life I often see here. We have so much to learn from others.
We Filipinos love our rice. It showed in our language how engrained this is in our culture. He call it ‘palay’ (when it is on the field), ‘bigas’ (when it is harvested and unhusked), and ‘kanin’ (when it is cooked). The English language just call it rice.
By the way, I agree it is hard to look for rice in Iowa (except in Asian stores). They do have corn. Lots and lots of it.
Oh, you are so right, Pinoytransplant! We had fun during our language study of the Palawano language, learning all the names for the dozens and dozens of varieties of rice, the names for the different stages of growing rice, and the words, like you mentioned, for cooked and uncooked rice. And there are words to describe the bits of rice left in the rice pot, the hard toasted rice that is sort of crisp at the bottom of the pot, and the little bits of rice that fall to the ground! Amazing. I liken it to the vocabulary English has talking about cars – all the car parts and brands and models.
And that Iowa corn is pretty darn good, isn’t it?
My husband has been gluten intolerant for over 30 years. I remember in the beginning ordering 25 pound sacks of brown rice and having to grind it into flour to make him bread. Today, I still buy the rice in sacks but no longer have to grind it.(Flour is now available). That allergey has been a blessing to both of us.Eating rice is healthier. We can travel Asia and Indonesia and can eat safely. We just witnessed a rice harvesting in Bali. Rice is life!! You explained this connection so well.
Hi Traveler Lynne, Thanks for stopping by! Lucky you – we haven’t been to Bali, but have heard so many people love it. Terrific that you found a happy solution to your husband’s gluten intolerance. Rice is a whole culture here in so many parts of Asia. Many, many ways to enjoy it. The Palawnos have lists and lists of vocabulary dealing with every stage of rice as it is growing, and different words for the hard rice that is stuck to the bottom of the rice pot, the grains of cooked rice that falls to the ground, innumerable varieties of uncooked rice. It goes on and on. Pretty fascinating.
I had no idea there were so many words to describe the stages of rice. Amazing!
LOL ! yep .. I go into withdrawals if i don’t eat rice after several days of no-rice meals. My husband (not Filipino) and two boys just laugh at me, bt they’re used to having rice everyday by now.
You said it all, and I miss eating rice 3x a day.
Btw, we also give rice as Christmas gift 😛
Hi, Donna…I’d like use your images of the rice being sold in your above blog for a research paper I am writing on subcultures (Guamanians & Filipinos). Could you tell me when the images were taken and name of photographer so I can properly cite them? Also if you don’t mind, can I cite your blog…I am emphasizing the love of rice the Filipino culture has and I think you have expressed it perfectly in this blog! Thanks!
Hi Haley, Glad you enjoyed the blog post. All the pictures above, (except the last one, ‘Unlimited Rice!’, which I found online), are ones I took. The first four were taken in front of the Puerto Princesa City Market, in Palawan, Philippines. (Did you notice how cooperative the people were in the pictures? Nice, huh?) The one with the raffle sign was taken at the Puerto Princesa City Water District headquarters. Yes, feel free to use them and cite the article. I’m honored!
Hi! Our love for rice is crazy, I’m laughing and loving how you wrote about it. 🙂 I have to go back to Palawan. I’m loving my country because of your blog. I’m following you now.
Vera, thank you so much! So glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks a bunch for stopping by.
All countries have their staple foods and rice must be one in the Phillipines. Rice bought in the UK tends to be prepacked and sold in bags of 500g, 1 kilo, 2 kilo etc.(we’re in the EU, unfortunately!). Bigger bags can be bought in specialist Chinese supermarkets but you would probably need a trolley to wheel it to the car.
Rice is quite hard to cook properly and retain a good texture, so I am thinking of buying a small rice cooker. Some people boil up rice and then place in a thermos flask to cook. I have tried that as well but the rice came out soggy.
In saying that, I work with an Indian man who says diabetes is rife in India because they eat so much rice, which is starchy. He said that in the UK we eat a lot of bread which has less starch so it is not so much of a problem..
Increasing rates of diabetes seems to be a problem in many countries. It certainly is in the U.S. I tend to lay a lot of blame on the ubiquity and high consumption of sugary soft drinks.
It’s bad in the UK and some experts say it will bankrupt the NHS (if the health tourists don’t do it first!). They are the ones who come to the UK get expensive health treatment and then shoot off before paying the bill because the NHS don’t demand payment first.
African women come to the UK to give birth hoping the child will get a UK passport. Like Mexican women going to the US.
I had a free health check at work last week and I am very fit – blood pressure 108/79, BMI 24.1, pulse rate 52 BPM, cholesterol 4.2. Don’t have diabetes.
Need to lose about 5lbs to get down to BMI of 22-23.
I am very jealous of your BMI of only 24.1! Good for you – sounds like you are taking good care of yourself.
Unusually for someone in the West of Scotland I am very fit. I walk to the train station to catch my train to work and usually go a walk at lunch time.
I go to the gym at work and usually cycle 20km, run 5km, walk 5km with the treadmill elevated to the highest position and finish off with weights.
I also have a healthy diet with vegetables, salmon and pasta and rice.
It won’t make me live any longer – it will only feel like it!
Rice goes with just about anything and everything, plus there are countless ways to prepare it. I can eat rice every day and never get tired of it. It’s been a staple of the human diet for millennia, so it’s not going away anytime soon! Thanks for this, Donna.
When a friend of my husband’s with an Asian wife came to stay for a week or so, he asked for no meals with rice……different culture.
Did he want a break from rice, then?
As a half-filipino this is definitely something I saw in my Filipino family (obviously). I can easily eat rice with every meal, but I don’t tend to. I usually don’t see anything wrong with it, and I guess that’s because the Filipino side of me is more prominent when it comes to rice consumption.
Donna, I love this…it’s all true. And the same thing happened to us just the other day here in Germany. If you think an Uncle Ben’s box is too small (and not really rice) try the miniscule German varieties…um no!
That is funny, Corinne! On Palawan, we have multiple German-owned businesses – restaurants, resorts, and so forth. Typically it is a German man married to a Filipina woman. Often they serve German specialties. But the schnitzel or bratwurst is ALWAYS served with a big side of rice! And it goes so well. If I go to visit Germany, I’ll probably be disappointed that there is no rice on the menu, huh?