White rice and Prosecco

‘Dear Sir Paddy, Madame Paddy

The god of agriculture

The gods of thunder, cloud, rain and wind

Please bless our villagers to have favourable rain and winds, green and

Luxuriant paddy and maize plants, and bumper crops’

The chant of the Trò Trám master of ceremonies during the sacred rice procession. 

The village of Trám is about 80km north of Hanoi and for hundreds of years they’ve celebrated the festival of Trò Trám to honour Ngô Thị Thanh, a Chinese woman credited with teaching the villagers to grow rice and spin silk. Featuring a midnight fertility rite and the parade of a sacred bundle of rice through the fields, it’s a riotous melting pot of spirit worship, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism all bound together by the essential role that rice plays and played in tribal society. 

Here in Britain we may not worship rice in quite the same way but I think it still carries a certain mystique. A staple (and even synonym for) food for over half the world, it manages to be familiar but still fascinating. Its aromatics are strangely beguiling, delicately floral, nutty and creamy, with some ghostly hints of spice. Like all delicate things it challenges you to engage with it on its own terms; like listening to a beautiful but quiet melody, you don’t want any distractions. 

I’m always reminded of the subtle pleasures of white rice when I smell good col fondo Prosecco. It shares the same base neutrality paired with a subtle generosity of flavour. Pears, white flowers, the delicate homely musk of fermenting dough. Even the mouthfeel is delicate, the bubbles a spritz, a caress - rather than the attack of Champagne. 

I think what I appreciate most is the way both rice and Prosecco have complexity without cacophony. Both are very softly spoken but still with much to say if you take the time to listen. 

I think we, as a species, appreciate complexity in aromatics more than we might at first think. We know that a lemon drop is lemon flavoured, but we also know that the spray of oils from a twist of Calabrian lemon zest is somehow more lemony. We get the complexity of its lemon scent in a really fundamental way, even if we lack the ability to tease out all the lemon, citrus, floral and piney flavours that make up that extra lemonyness. 

Quite often when I’m thinking about pairing things I look to the background flavours and try to layer them; a thick Maillard crust heavy with butter lactones from basting will just eat up the coconut, vanilla and caramel from some chunky new oak, just as the wash of beurre blanc intermingles easily with some buttery leesy malolactic notes. 

It’s with this in mind that I’m serving myself a small bowl of the best aromatic rice I can find, seasoned with a splash of rice wine vinegar and sea salt, some shio koji pickled cucumber on the side and a small bowl of aged soy sauce. I’ve gently rolled a bottle of Casa Belfi’s bianco col fondo for maximum turbidity and I’m serving it in a Zalto universal glass to really show it off.

I can now have a moment of proper contemplation of the subtle delicacies and fleeting pleasures provided by white rice and Prosecco. 

‘Who wants to buy spring?’

Buy spring now before it is gone

If you delay it will no longer be spring

Play with spring before you get old

Play with the moon before it sets. 

The plaintive song of Ngô Thị Thanh