So says this article in the South China Morning Post today.
Despite the recent crop being heralded as a breakthrough this is clearly a project with still a way to go. For instance, the salt-tolerant crop cannot actually survive in seawater, but in water 1/6 as salty - clearly we won’t be seeing beachfront paddies quite yet.
Nevertheless, soil salinity is a problem in many parts of the world (Australia is definitely one) including some food-insecure parts of Africa. And world population is predicted to grow at least another 20, 30 percent before it levels off. Will we be feeding these extra mouths on saltwater rice? Is this a game changer for agriculture in the next century?
Honkies put soy sauce directly on steamed rice as a condiment. Japanese (and probably Chinese) will put soy sauce into rice as part of making friend rice, they’ll add it to sauces that are drizzled over rice (like in Gyudon), and they’ll add it into sauces that go into foods that are to be paired with rice.
Soy sauce, in East Asia, is effectively their “salt” and they cook with it in much the same way we do, by adding it into lots of recipes as they cook, as a flavor enhancer.
But, it’s also pretty universally accepted that you’re going to be pairing whatever you’re making with rice, and so you season your food appropriately for that.
If you are given salty rice, I would expect that you would season your recipes to be less salty while preparing, since you know that most bites will be paired with the rice.
My understanding is that it’s a similar faux pas to put soy sauce directly onto rice in China as it is in Japan, so I wouldn’t expect these particular gaijin to do that.
It’s just a bit more extreme in Japan where rice is sometimes served after the meal, to be eaten by itself. It’s meant to be kept pure. For breakfast, you might break an egg and mix it in with your rice, but that’s a different deal than at the main meal.
“Consumers pay a high premium not just for the pleasurable eating experience, but also for some potential health and safety benefits.”
Wonder what those “health and safety benefits” are supposed to be, and how well documented the claims are. Salt is mentioned in the article as a disinfectant, but apparently in the context of the crop supposedly being pest resistant (if salt was so healthy, the world toll of disease could be reduced just by heavily salting one’s food, and I don’t believe that’s actually the case, nor is it mentioned that this variety of rice is naturally salty).
Once the novelty wears off, will there be enough customers to justify continued cultivation?
