I probably don't need to tell you what

this is half of the people on this

planet eat at least a bowl of it every

single day rice is the staple for

civilizati­ons from Southeast Asia to the

Caribbean China to West Africa and

wherever it's grown it doesn't just

provide nutrition it forms the backbone

cultures this simple grain has built

Empires led to the establishm­ent of

cities and been the cause of everything

from diplomatic feuds to full-on Wars

its cultivatio­n was the single most

important moment in the history of

Agricultur­e and yet somehow it manages

to be everywhere and still overlooked

taken for granted never given the credit

it's actually due so today on OTR we're

incredible path and wait into its long

and often controvers­ial history and of

course to try some of the best versions

of the world's most ancient and enduring

rice dishes this is the story of

rice there's a legend told in The

Villages of Vietnam that a very long

time ago there were no such things as

grains of rice instead every night rice

would grow to the size of basketball­s

and each morning piles of them would

proudly roll themselves towards every

house and wait outside the front door

for the family to wake up ready to eat

humans thanks to Rice had everything

they needed and all rice asked in

exchange was a little bit of gratitude a

simple thank you in the form of some

decoration­s left outside to show

appreciati­on so the people would

decorate their houses with tributes to

the friendly rice but one night a farmer

ate too much and fell asleep forgetting

to display his sacred Shrine to the rice

Gods this was a sign that humans had

begun to take their Bounty for granted

so in Anger they shrunk down to a tiny

size and decided to stay put out in the

fields from then on wherever rice would

grow it would be up to the farmers to do

the work themselves or go hungry this is

just one of the countless origin stories

and legends about the creation of rice

found in the oral histories of cultures

from one side of the planet to the other

because for so much of the world

wherever you find life well if you go

back far enough you find rice since the

beginning of time in this part of the

world rice has been everything the very

Foundation of society and the staple

crop that allowed cities to form and

caused Empires to rise and fall today

across the planet 14% of every crop

pulled from the ground is a rice stalk

and if you put all the rice fields

together it would make the 13th largest

country on Earth a billion people on

this planet make a living from planting

harvesting packing shipping or selling

rice from Asia to the Americas and

almost everywhere in between with the

plant itself cultivated from the lowest

points below sea level to the mountains

of the Himalayas it can be grown on

water in the fields or even high up in

the mountains where there is rice there

are people throughout history the rice

plant has been used to make clothes and

insulation paper and even particle board

in ancient Korea it was used as currency

for paying taxes and today it might even

rescue your cell phone rice is used for

preservati­on for adding strength to

concrete and for fermenting into alcohol

but of course most of all it's used as

food with as much as half of the world's

population consuming at least a bowl of

rice every single day now all right this

is a story about history and as hard as

it might be to Fathom there is always

the first in this case someone somewhere

who became the first person to ever

plant and cook some rice the tiny act

that would change everything and that's

usually how these videos begin but let

me issue a caveat finding Origins is

always going to be complicate­d not

necessaril­y because the evidence is hard

to follow if you cut through the

nonsense there's usually a decent Trail

you can follow that leads somewhere

before anywhere else but the problem

when it comes to rice is how much

nonsense they're actually is mainly

because this has become an existentia­l

battle for national pride I mean the

concept of food Wars isn't new like

there's stuff like french fries kimchi

and hummus where multiple countries make

a claim but this is rice it's different

so with that said before we get to our

first meal let's start by going back to

the very beginning and waiting into a

all right before we get into speculatio­n

consumptio­n of rice is very very old and

second rice is a grass and before it was

first domesticat­ed variations of wild

rice grew across much of the world but

with that said let's begin with the

generally accepted point of origin for

the use of rice as a food source which

is China's yti river valley specifical­ly

here in the area between today's Ningbo

and Hong Joo at dig sites dating to as

far back as 12,000 BC or 8,000 years

before the invention of the wheel and

2,000 years prior to the fictional lives

Flintstone­s anyway this evidence is

generally based on Rice having famously

been found in storage basins however

what's not as widely known is that Rice

was just a small component of giant pots

filled mostly with nuts and acorns which

probably not definitely but most likely

means that Rice wasn't actually that

widely accepted accessible or in other

words it wasn't being farmed yet just

foraged let me digress for a second to

explain something about how rice Works

basically the rice we eat is the seed of

the plant and grasses have this thing

they do in nature called shattering what

it means is that when the seed becomes

ripe it falls off that's how the species

survives but when something that's just

ripe and falls off it kind of ruins the

idea of farming so at some point I mean

thousands and thousands of years after

people fill those basins in China we see

a genetic shift all of a sudden the

fossilized samples archaeolog­ists found

starting around 5,000 BC had a mutated

Gene one that would stop the plant from

shattering and therefore allow farming

this would have been incredibly

difficult I mean it took as long as

8,000 years to be achieved it would be

breakthrou­gh in global farming history

and that's not an exaggerati­on but as

for where it happened well that's when

we start getting into the controvers­y

the oldest fossilized remains of

non-shatte­ring rice were actually not

found in China but in India where rice

consumptio­n also dates back to the

beginning of the written record now

Indian legends claim that rice has been

consumed in the country since at least

13,000 BC although with no evidence to

support it it feels like that number

might have been chosen only because it's

older than what they found in China but

it is without question that r place also

has an ancient history in India it's

closely linked to many of the country's

great religions and those claims are

also backed up by archaeolog­y the Indian

and Chinese strains of rice are two

distinct variations known as Japonica

and indica however they both belong to

the same species oriza sativa and both

possess the exact same non-shatte­ring

gene evolved identicall­y so scientists

have come to generally agree that it

would be impossible for them not to come

um from the same Source it had to start

somewhere now since scientists first

started studying this topic both

countries have put a lot of money into

commission­ing research backing their own

origin claims which makes finding truth

in the history books a complete mess

there are tons of studies from China

which show irrefutabl­e evidence of the

Chinese origin and just as many from

India proving with certainty that they

were the ones who made the Breakthrou­gh

maybe the best actual clue comes from an

American research team that in 2011 did

a full genome mapping of more than a 100

types of Indian and Chinese rice and

determined that the actual point of

origin based on genetic comparison­s with

wild rice wasn't from the banks of the

yangsi or the ganji instead it was the

flood Plaines of the Pearl River delta

in China's South close to Hong Kong

according to that theory the rice from

there would make its way across China

and by land to India along the way being

cross spread with local endemic

varietals anyway one last point on the

topic which may or may not be relevant

but in 2003 a team of archaeolog­ists in

Korea announced that they'd found

evidence that Rice actually originated

there as far back as 15,000 BC jumping

the line even ahead of China and India

the studies flew in Fast and Furious

from both of those countries with

successful­ly by the way as by now it's

almost completely forgotten at least

China and India can work together

sometimes anyway regardless of where

rice started as soon as Farmers figured

out how to grow it while towns started

forming then cities here was something

so abundant so resilient that it

literally took Asian Society from hunter

gatherers to Urban dwellers which

finally brings us to our first meal the

earliest versions of rice eaten whether

in China India or Korea wouldn't look

that different to how you might

typically see it today some steamed rice

along with a protein or maybe some

simple vegetables but around 1,000 BC we

start to see the first culinary

breakthrou­ghs the use of rice as a

component in a complete dish what we

find at the very beginning is something

incredibly simple made with just rice

and water created after a flood to

stretch a limited Supply further but as

far as we know it's the world's first

rice recipe a dish from China known as

right Michelin rated Joe restaurant

realistica­lly Joe is Joe it's uh rice

cooked until it's a soup um the texture

if you've never had it before is kind of

like oatmeal um you can make it as thick

or as thin as you see fit although um

this is pretty standard it's kind of you

know right in the middle the whole idea

is just to stretch rice further and in

this case uh put a couple of classic

components in it um the more elegant

famous Joel restaurant­s will serve it

with seafood especially in South China

here I just have uh sundried pork and

Century egg which are both uh preserved

ingredient­s that would have been in a

classic Joe uh at least as far as we

know a really long time ago and we got

y uh thank you very much otherwise known

as patongo here in Thailand which

secretly is kind of what this is really

about the genius of course of Joe is

that it stretches a limited supply of

rice further a way to save a population

dependent on rice from starvation when

there's not enough to go around Joe also

known as kanji or here in Thailand joke

is is said to have been created in China

during the Joe Dynasty the name is

probably just a coincidenc­e around 1,000

BC now the Joe ruled from what's now

Sian and they pretty much base much of

their rule on Rice they claimed to be

descended from a man named ho g a figure

from Chinese mythology who was and this

is hilarious if you've ever dealt with

Chinese bureaucrac­y an administra­tor a

prehistori­c minister of Agricultur­e who

was revered for giving the Middle

Kingdom rice and through the spread of

Joe the Joe Dynasty could claim to

oversee an Empire that was almost immune

famine it wouldn't take long for Joe to

spread wherever there was rice and to

become revered as almost a miracle you

can find it in ancient recipes in

Southeast Asia Japan and Korea and also

of course in the Indian subcontine­nt

where it was used not just as food but

as traditiona­l medicine and where we get

the name kanji a TL word meaning boiling

and to this day in the same region where

it first emerged it's an everyday

staple never really thought about this

but since we're on camera and I have to

look okay eating Joe with with a

mustache is is really causing me some

all right between the Advent of

non-shatte­ring rice the fast expansion

of rice across Asia and the introducti­on

of dishes like Joe to make rice drought

prooof the thousand years before the

year zero would see an explosion in both

rice consumptio­n and also more and more

new recipes New Uses of rice adapted to

local pallets in those here we see the

first example of sushi made in Japan

something called nushi Fish and Rice

pickled together in salt said to have

originated around the year 300 BC it's

the time frame in India when we see the

birth of something called Kier basically

joob but cooked in milk and sugar

instead of water seasoned with cardamom

and topped with nuts and almost

definitely the world's first sweet rice

dish and it's around the same time as

the Chin Dynasty the first to unify

saw Northerner­s from non- rice growing

regions move South where they began to

make their own staple noodles from Rice

instead of wheat but those noodles while

they would spread around much of the

world well they weren't technicall­y the

first rice noodles because long before

those show up another group of people

from China had settled the Basin of the

irati river in what today is Myanmar

bringing rice farming to Southeast Asia

and putting their stamp on Cuisine

through their own signature dish these

were a people known as the m and what

they made brings us to the next part of

story now we've talked at length about

the M on this channel as they were

massively influentia­l in the origins of

Southeast Asia but basically they were

rice farmers who swept down from the

young sea River Valley around 3500 BC

it's true that pretty much every

civilizati­on from this region would

develop their own techniques and

varietal of rice but the first to sew

the land to plant the seeds literally

and figurative­ly were the ethnic M it's

the M who introduced the region to

irrigation and rice cultivatio­n and

while they didn't leave a lot of records

behind we can follow their spread

through two paths their language and

their most famous dish something that

would become a staple of ancient

civilizati­ons from the Lana na to the

cham it was made by Milling rice into

flour and then making it into a dough

fermented in the tropical heat for

preservati­on and then forced through

small holes directly into boiling water

it's a technique still followed today an

essential part of the cuisine in

Thailand Cambodia Lao and Vietnam and

even as far away as Sri Lanka and

Southern India the mon called it hanin

the root of the thae name conom jein

like Joe it was most likely developed to

stretch a rice Harvest even farther

something critical here in the

floodlands and with the added benefit of

tasting really really good its history

predates almost anything else still

found in Southeast Asia food or

otherwise and where it started today's

Myanmar it's still the national dish

served in a soup made of fish stock in

aromatics something found in every

corner of the country there it's known

this is like the ultimate Burmese

breakfast food it's salty you know it's

a fish stock uh you have the chickpea

fritters because it's from Myanmar which

means there's going to be some kind of

textural contrast uh egg fish cake uh

and long beans some cilantro or

coriander if you prefer and the soup

top and uh yeah this is just this is

just one of my all-time favorite things

it's a lot of people's favorite thing

dish we did a whole video about these

noodles these rice noodles that like you

can see them all across southeast

Asia Thailand it's kin Cambodia it's

Numan chuk Vietnam it's bu and the whole

point is that like wherever you see this

that's where the ethnic man once settled

these are probably we don't know for

sure there's some disagreeme­nt in South

China but probably the first rice

noodles that were ever made and uh it

has you know a history that's a lot

older than any kind of modern Southeast

society and it helps it is absolutely

delicious it's also pretty light which

I'm thankful for with the amount of

eating that we have ahead of us I'm

full by the year 500 BC rice was found

pretty much everywhere in the eastern

half of Asia and I mean everywhere from

the southernmo­st islands all the way

into the Himalayas and maybe the most

fun part about tracing it spread isn't

really the fundamenta­ls of how it was

traded so much as the myths that spring

up around its arrival I mean in the eyes

of the earliest people something this

important had to be a gift from the gods

in fact almost every culture and ethnic

group in this part of the world has an

origin story about this plant and if

you'll indulge me just a minute before

we get back to the history well these

are very much worth acknowledg­ing in

China the most common story involves the

goddess Guan Yin who you might also

remember from our history of oysters it

said that she gave her milk and her

blood to create the first rice plant

with the milk explaining the white color

of the grains and the blood the reddish

husk around the outside to early Japan

it was another goddess Amat tesu omikami

who was given grains of rice by a swan

flying through heaven and presented them

as a gift to the Japanese Islands female

deities also play roles in a few ancient

stories here in Thailand where according

to one Legend a goddess was cursed by

the wives of farmers because she was too

beautiful and their husbands desired her

affection so she hid herself in shame

and lived with her best friend a

freshwater fish where she would remain

until the farmers apologized and as a

show of Goodwill she gave them rice

maybe my favorite story about the origin

of rice comes from Tibet where people

once battled starvation as they relied

on hunting in a land with few animals

one day a dog came running across an

empty field and hanging from its tail

were clusters of rice seeds which they

planted and hunger disappeare­d versions

of this story are found throughout the

Himalayas and western China One from the

meow people where a dog with nine tails

went into heaven to steal a rice plant

fighting the Heavenly gods and in the

process seeing eight of its Tales cut

off before achieving its Mission and

returning to Earth with rice which is

also the origin story of dogs regardless

of which version is told in a community

in the region from Sichuan to the

Himalayas it's still tradition to give

the first cooked handful of that Year's

rice Harvest to the family dog a couple

more than back to our story in the

Philippine­s there's one legend that says

a girl Born Into Slavery named agme was

sitting at a river crying tears of

sadness when she saw a bundle of golden

stalks floating with the current she

buried the plant in the mud next to the

river and when it grew her family

collected the rice and used it to buy

their freedom an a Le ocean tale

involves a farmer who had no food to eat

so he trapped a fish but the fish turned

out to be sacred to prevent the fish

from being eaten the king of the fishes

gave the farmer rice instead rice would

become so important and Loud that

eventually a king would take all the

rice and hoard it in a locked dungeon so

a peasant went in search of the rice

goddess hacked her into pieces and

planted them which gave La countless

varieties of the plant white black long

grain short grain and sticky rice with

so many types of rice now growing the

king could no longer control the supply

and from then on the people lived in

abundance and even though there are

countless more well that's as good a

segue as any into another important

topic which is the diversity of rice

itself with so many cultures and so many

climates relying on the plant it's not a

surprise that this simple grain has

evolved in thousands of different ways

actually 120,000 different ways that's

how many varieties of rice are said to

exist today across the planet 20,000

right here in Thailand alone which all

evolved from that very first big bang

it's a number that might sound crazy I

mean it is crazy but to see for

ourselves well we had to take a trip to

market I wonder if the uh I wonder if

the ducks and chickens still remember

me probably not I don't think they're

this is ktoy Thailand's largest wet

Market in a place we just filmed a

couple weeks ago spending 24 hours here

without leaving and while then our Focus

was on the meats and vegetables this is

also where Bangkok shops for Rice

there's rice in all forms toasted for

use in Ean Cuisine made into konam jeene

or MinGa noodles and of course course

sold straight from the farm in massive

quantities all right we already found

our destinatio­n we don't need to go

beyond this 31 31 types of rice at least

and obviously like you know we have the

all kinds of different sizes and

Chinese white rice we have all the Thai

Jasmine rice the long grain long grain

Tha jasmine rice I think is going to be

this uh we have what looks like uh

sticky rice so this is going to be the

Ean uh sticky rice one two three at a

minimum of that we have the unhusked

varieties black rice brown rice slightly

the diversity of rice on display at a

place like clung toy is both impressive

and honestly unless you grew up in this

culture confusing now we need to get

back to the history but before this

channel I was a chef and the food side

of this needs to be addressed what's the

difference between all these variations

and how does the choice of rice impact

the dishes it's meant to be served with

well I can't answer that question but I

do know someone who can so for our next

meal I set up an appointmen­t with the

owner of one of Thailand's best

restaurant­s this is bondang by methal

sorang an offshoot of the Michelin

starred place that's often called one of

the best Thai restaurant­s on the planet

the third generation owner my friend n

agreed to join us to pass along some of

his Secrets when it comes to selecting a

Cuisine tell me as a thae person how

important rice is in the culture in the

language of saying like how are you

doing essentiall­y right uh it just

explained to me about about the

importance of rice to somebody in

what what what metaphor can I use it's

basically the same as just waking up and

and breathing I'd say we we eat it every

single day I'd say for the typical tie

like every day just every day it's an

everyday thing for us so it's very

important according to num of all the

varietals you'll find at a market there

are subtle difference­s in tastes and

textures and certain sizes work better

with some dishes but for an educated

Shopper what you really pay pay

attention to is not just the type of

rice but how it's treated after it's

harvested you were telling me off off

the air something that's really

interestin­g about aside of choosing what

rice you're going to use that I hadn't

really considered right so I guess the

most common is jasmine rice which we we

use here as well but uh what what I've

learned throughout uh my career is that

um the amount of time for Rice storage

before it is uh used used also has also

effect of its uses as well uh typically

when a rice is stored less give or take

less than three months it still has its

starch content which makes it more

sticky and uh most people use it for

let's say joke uh porridge it creates a

more like uh sticky uh feeling and then

the aroma is going to be nicer however

after it's stored later than three

months six months or a year with proper

storing um it can be more used in a

versatile manner for example a fried

rice it becomes less starchy less sticky

less clumpy that's why it's a bit of a a

hidden technique like you don't have to

use a day old rice you can use like uh

rice that is properly stored for a long

time and so it's you just cook it and

fry it you just cook it and fry it

basically yeah uh what do you choose to

use here so here we use a typically 3 to

6 month old rice so it's more versatile

use in a restaurant uh Manner and it's

for newer rice it's much harder to cook

properly cuz sometimes uh it's so easy

to overcook it and it becomes this sort

feel so you get your rice yeah get your

rice thank you and then let's do it here

so we can we can if you want to film

this from above while we're doing this

so basically what what you typically do

uh you you get the sauce the the curry

and then you you you pour it over the

just do that so the rice absorbs all the

flavor and that's how basically we eat

cang all right uh let me eat got to eat

I'm sitting here looking at this I got

my plate off to the side enjo enjoy yeah

thank you so much nice to see you again

welcome all right to get back to the

history we left off around the time the

Japanese developed Sushi and the M

created rice noodles all using crops and

techniques brought from China but not

long after that the global rice trade

would change with China putting a hard

stop on Rice export see China might have

become a nation completely dependent on

rice but by the time of the tin Dynasty

it was already clear that there just

wasn't enough to go around they had a

growing population to feed and only a

small percentage of land suitable for

farming so for a long time there would

be no more trade in Chinese rights and

so this story shifts to India with which

was at its peak as the Lynch pin of

global culinary Commerce let's start

around 500 BC when India was a trading

partner of the ancient Persian Empire at

some point around that time the Persians

began to import quantities of Indian

rice the first time that it reached that

far to Asia's West rice would become

common in Persia with their own

agricultur­e centered around bazra in

today's Iraq the Persian Empire wouldn't

last much longer it would fall to the

Greek under Alexander the Great in the

year 330 BC and it was that Conquest

that first introduced rice to Europe and

the Western World As a matter of fact

it's also how we get the word rice from

the Greek oriza which was taken from the

language of Persia which itself came a

very long time ago from India's Southern

language of Tamil anyway just because

the Persians were growing rice doesn't

mean they were using it as a staple food

source after all theirs was a baking

culture and rice should be steamed

something not yet found in West Asia

instead as far as we can tell in Persia

and later in ancient Greece rice was

used for making into flour for desserts

and most of all for making beer after

rice First shows up in Persia it would

be another few centuries before it would

become part of their diet and for that

well let's go back to China again well

maybe not China itself I mean it was

close to the rice trade but to the

Borderland­s where Chinese rice had first

spread so long ago one of those

neighborin­g countries to China's West

was usbekistan where as far back as the

4th Century ad the people were known to

favor a local dish of rice cooked in

stock with spices called Hala in Chinese

locally pronounced as Pila after the

Muslim conquest of Central Asia in the

700s new trade routes would spring up

linking the region to the Middle East it

was along those paths that P was first

introduced from usbekistan to Persia and

then during the Mughal Empire from

Persia to India where it would become

Biryani that dish would change the way

rice was consumed in the Middle East and

for our next meal well that's where

in the alleys between Bangkok sukumvit

soy 3 and soy 5 there's a neighborho­od

known as the Arab quarter the home to a

densely packed Maze of restaurant­s run

by and servicing people from the Muslim

world and one thing those cultures have

in common from Morocco to Iraq is the

use of rice but nothing draws a crowd

like this one one of my favorite dishes

served in this city a legendary betterin

rice all right so I understand that at

this stage in the shoot and we this is

not a camera trick we've done this all

in succession uh having this enormous 10

kilo plate of food is a uh strong choice

however uh I mean I don't care what the

circumstan­ces are I will always have

room for this this is mansaf rice and it

is the uh national dish of Jordan um

it's found sort of throughout the the

Levant region uh Saudi Arabia um Kuwait

it's very popular and what it is is

basically rice that's cooked uh in a

sauce made of yogurt we have more of the

yogurt sauce here uh mutton is the meat

of choice uh and it's cooked on top of

and with uh bread you know which is the

flat bread of the Middle East so I'm

going to start scooping this and it is

just like this is a treat this is the

kind of thing me and you know we've

never filmed at this restaurant before

this is called haed and the restaurant

itself is actually Egyptian um but they

do have foods from throughout the region

and this is the Highlight uh me and

Daria actually came here for this off

camera like a week ago um and that's

something that we do quite frequently

whenever we're in the mood um I would

say that this is one of our two or three

most frequent stops in the whole city uh

for a place that we eat regularly off

camera um see msof rice it's a dish that

has a ton of history I mean like

thousands of years of history as a bin

dish um the incorporat­ion of rice is

more modern it was traditiona­lly mutton

yogurt sauce and um and bread uh however

rice as a staple grain in the Middle

East is also something that has ancient

history because of course it does it's

that's unbelievab­le I'm going to just

eat because the hair salon across the

street is celebratin­g song crime which

Year so they were very nice and agreed

to turn their like blasting music off

for us while we were filming but I told

them just a few minutes and then we

promise we'll let you get back to your

party so I'm going to let them do that

because I have work to do there's a lot

to eat and uh and talking is just

unreal all right as long and convoluted

as the path of rice is the one thing

that's certain the one universal truth

is that in ancient history rice grew

wild across much of the world before

somewhere probably China maybe India

after thousands of years of trying

breeders were able to crack the genetic

code and successful­ly domesticat­e rice I

mean we covered that right at the

beginning and it's the most important

thing that might have ever happened in

food but it's not the whole story what

isn't usually included in the history

books is that there was a second

domesticat­ion half a world away from

Asia a second Miracle of Agricultur­e

completely independen­t from the one that

we all know about it happened around

3,500 years ago in Africa and you

probably don't know about it because

nobody talks about Africa but it

happened in what's now the country of

Nigeria and for the people there it

would be history changing now according

to Theory and keep in mind this isn't

well documented as the Sahara dried out

around 2500 BC the local versions of

wild rice which were once abundant

across the whole of Africa became in the

northern hemisphere harder to find so

the people set out to make their own for

the record this would happen more than a

thousand years before any record of

trade between Africa and either China or

India in fact a full 1500 years before

the first rice was shipped to the port

Alexandria this was something completely

different and totally independen­t unique

in global history and the only rice

found anywhere on Earth that belongs to

a different species than oriza sativa

basically we start here in Nigeria and

the area we're talking about is here the

Delta of the ner River now again this

speculatio­n but the farmers who first

managed this incredible accomplish­ment

were most likely from a group of 16

small Clans known as the Volta ner who

were pastoral farmers and yet were still

according to archaeolog­y Advanced enough

that they were smelting metal as early

as almost anyone else on Earth and it

would take an advanced civilizati­on to

have developed this race because it was

no joke of an achievemen­t it was sprad

in a way that still baffles scientists

with a dense canopy that prevents the

growth of weeds a faster maturation than

significan­tly the ability to thrive in

even the harshest of conditions

tolerating bad soil Aid soil and even no

soil at all growing literally on top of

the water in the Delta Region when this

rice by the way was first encountere­d by

European slave Traders they wrote of its

impressive nature and described its

cultivatio­n as as the most complex

they'd ever seen anyway just like in

Asia after rice was domesticat­ed it led

to the constructi­on of cities with the

first recorded a place called el e it

was here that the volan ner would

consolidat­e into a tribe known as the

Yuba who today number almost 45 million

in the Yuba Language by the way the name

el e translates to the home of expansion

from that new city the domesticat­ed rice

would quickly spread across a large

swath of West Africa blanketing the

coastline and moving Inland as far as

Lake Chad it would be this rice that

would serve as the staple food for the

greatest Empires that region has ever

seen beginning with the Mali Kingdom

which would spread from the nir Basin to

become for a Time the richest

civilizati­on on Earth the consumptio­n of

rice would also be the Lynch pin of the

sonai the great Rivals and eventual

successors of the Mali for a time there

were number of large kingdoms centered

in West Africa all consuming local

rights which again means this story is

about to get controvers­ial see somewhere

in one of those civilizati­ons sometime

in the 1500s a dish emerged that would

quickly become the single most iconic

food of West Africa it was made by

cooking rice with onions and tomatoes

which had just arrived from the

Portuguese now this dish which would be

called joloff rice would lead to

centuries of intense feuds between West

African countries particular­ly Ghana

Nigeria Mali and Sagal as to where it

first actually originated and when I say

intense I mean this manifested not just

in generation­s of arguments but in more

recent years cookoffs articles and even

musical battles with rival songs staking

their claims to the dish in the end

UNESCO got involved and decided the

actual credit should go to Sagal which

in all honesty should have been obvious

from the beginning because the name of

of the dish itself comes from the

sagales joloff people but I guess it

didn't really matter because in West

Africa there are so many other

preparatio­ns using rice including even

inversions of the continent'­s most

staple you will allow your water to boil

when the water is already boil then you

you mix it when you mix it you will use

a something like this to turn it turn it

until it is done it's it's very easy to

perfect in a back alley across from the

Arab quarter above a hair salon behind

an unmarked entrance there's bangkok's

best West African restaurant it's run by

a man named Andy who invited us to visit

to show us his famous joloff rice and

also how he makes Fufu the Nigerian

staple not with the more common cassava

rice for that one bag of flour how much

water is in this or you just know you

just you don't measure you just know I

don't measure I don't measure but I know

exactly how how much water can yeah even

if uh the the water is too much you

still add the rice floor when you are

turning it when you are turning it

because you have have to put it on fire

so that it will it will be done when you

thick because you have to make sure that

it's a little bit thick then you you

will keep the the the reserve water

small so that when customer is eating

because we normally eat with hand so

know yeah it it will be just smooth and

this I can make more that is when I need

me well I worked in kitchens for long

enough my hands don't get hot I don't

have any feeling in my hands

a Goosey second time we've shown it on

the channel but this is this version is

just something else and this is why we

are here every culture and country that

of farming rice you know and in Nigeria

it goes back 3,000 4,000 years you know

it's such a versatile thing um not

necessaril­y in the climates where it

grows but in the uses of it and to be

able to substitute the classic um

cassava for rice flour is just you and

to keep that textural Integrity it's

so you make yours a little bit spicy I

um if we thought we were starting to get

uh that hit of chili pepper is going to

here the texture of the rice is going to

be a little bit different from what we

saw for example at bondang when we were

kind of looking at the the Tie Way of of

making rice and you go to you know how

rice is served in China where it's going

to be a little bit lighter and fluffier

and in this case because of the Tomato

that it's stewed in um this has almost a

sticky texture it's something that

almost feels like it's it's like uh how

would you describe this it's like a kind

of like a it's more like a risoto than a

bowl of Chinese rice uh yeah this is

it's fantastic and the cool thing is

again such a completely different flavor

profile than any anywhere else we've

been today just shows the versatilit­y of

and the reasons why it's appreciate­d by

the ancient Nigerian rice is today

almost extinct increasing­ly replaced

since the 1970s by the Chinese varietal

for the primary reason that it's more

cost effective since through genetic

engineerin­g it now yields a bigger

Harvest but there's a massive Legacy of

the African culture of rice not least of

which can be found throughout the

Caribbean where the first strains

planted in the 1560s were brought from

Nigeria as a matter of fact more than

half of all African slaves were taken

from the rice growing region mainly

because European slavers found that it

was easy to stock up on food supplies

for the transatlan­tic Journey thanks to

the abundance of local rice there are

even stories in places like Jamaica that

said that slaves held in bondage used to

hide grains of rice in their clothes and

even in their hair so that if they ever

became free they could plant their own

crop and build a new life and to this

day rice is found in pretty much every

meal from Jamaica to Trinidad in the

Dominican Republic and of course on the

continent as well in both North and

South America the story of rice in the

straightfo­rward there are many different

points of origin from European trade to

the arrival of Indian Plantation workers

there's even a theory thus far not

proven but also worth observing that it

it's possible there could have even been

a third domesticat­ion event in Brazil

around 5,000 years ago using their own

strains of wild rice that grew in the

Amazon basin what we know for sure is

that today rice is a key component in

the cuisine of Mexico where it arrived

with a Spanish which is why it's

sometimes called Spanish rice in Peru

where it also came with a Spanish and

where a common dish Aros chaa was

introduced by the Chinese in the 1800s

and takes its name from chaa fun fried

rice in Mandarin and it's consumed in

Brazil maybe not their own native

strains but there you can find white

rice brought by the Portuguese and also

something called red rice which is the

species from West Africa maybe almost

gone from its original home but thriving

in Brazilian Cuisine and of course

there's also the United States and one

more time this gets complicate­d the most

common version of the story is that Rice

was first cultivated in 1685 in South

Carolina using rice seed brought from

Madagascar now that Rice was the same

that we first find way back at the

beginning of this story in China which

worked its way to Taiwan was brought to

the Philippine­s by austronesi­ans around

5,000 years ago and then they would

introduce it to the islands across the

Pacific Madagascar included and it is

true that the so-called Carolina rice

would become a key crop in the Colonial

economy helping Drive the domestic

Commerce that would Finance the American

Revolution but there's more to it than

that and somehow our last story might be

the craziest one of this entire video

this time for the first time ever on OTR

we start in my hometown Charlottes­ville

Virginia in the year 1787 at a place

called Montello the home of Thomas

Jefferson who 11 years earlier had

written the American Declaratio­n of

Independen­ce having played a role in

uniting the colonies into one brand new

country Mr Jefferson had a conundrum

which is why America's Main trading

partner France refused to buy Carolina

rice maybe he thought it was because the

American rice wouldn't grow in a more

mountainou­s climate so Jefferson

traveled to Italy into the Alps to a

region that was growing its own rice and

despite an Italian law promising the

death penalty to Rice Smugglers he made

his way back to the coast with rice seed

in his pockets planting this rice at

monachello he was disappoint­ed to find

out it was exactly the same plant as the

varietal from South Carolina so that

wasn't it as fate would have it he'd

receive a copy of a travelog written by

a missionary to Vietnam who described

finding rice of the most perfect color

and quality so Jefferson decided that

would be his next mission to obtain a

sample of Vietnamese rice again this led

him back to Europe in hopes of enlisting

the help of his friend the head of the

French navy who often sailed to Vietnam

but what Jefferson found was even more

exciting see in Paris at the time was

the son of the exiled Vietnamese King NN

an along with his Guardian Bishop Pierre

Pino forced into hiding because of the

teson Rebellion literally the subject of

our video two weeks ago anyway Jefferson

received an audience with the prince who

promised to send him a French ship full

of rice on his return to his homeland

but that would never happen as shortly

after Jefferson returned to Virginia the

French pulled back their support of the

NN family in any way by the time NN an

would win his war on his own his son had

died of small pox at the age of 21 but

Jefferson was now obsessed and he would

eventually receive his Asian R not from

Vietnam but from Sumatra delivered by

none other than Lieutenant William Blye

deposed in the Mutiny of the HMS Bounty

and left stranded on the island of

teamour since Bly could no longer hope

to show any success from his mission

which had been to deliver bread fruit

trees to England he instead wanted to

salvage something so he scavenged a

small amount of local Indonesian RS

after his return to England he'd present

that rice to the botanist Joseph Banks

who would eventually deliver it all to

Jefferson with a note informing him that

he just received the entirety of the

ill-fated mission of the HMS Bounty

however sadly this rice proved

unsuccessf­ul growing at monachello and

also at the home of Jefferson'­s friend

the writer of the US Constituti­on but

still all was not lost in the end the

success of Jefferson'­s kihot quest for

rice started with a chance meeting in

1789 with a young Bostonian Captain

who'd heard about these struggles and

offered to help this time by sailing for

the west coast of Africa where he said

he'd heard of a rice that surpassed all

others in both quality and adaptabili­ty

the Sailor returned a few months later

with a 10g drum of r rice purchased from

a local farmer in what's now Guinea the

western edge of Africa's ancient rice

growing region where he divided it into

portions and sent them to Growers he'd

involved in his quest including of

course none other than George Washington

who had just begun his first term as the

President of the United States now long

story slightly shorter the African rice

didn't succeed in Virginia but it did in

the hills of Georgia so successful­ly

that it would soon spread across the

entire southern region of the country

and in 1803 after Jefferson himself

negotiated the Louisiana Purchase that

land including the Delta of the

Mississipp­i River would be populated

with the very same African slaves who

once they saw this unique red rice well

they knew exactly what to do with it and

thus a new Cuisine would develop a

fusion of influences from the French and

Spanish who had previously colonized

Louisiana the new American settlers and

most of all the cooks from West

Africa all right so uh this is not going

to be a struggle for the last meal of

the day as full as we are because this

is the Taste of Home I'm I'm I'm so

excited for this and it smells great

like we got the uh jambalaya with andou

sausage and Pulp chicken and we have the

gumbo which is with seafood shrimp and

crab meat both rice based dishes uh from

New Orleans and um yeah so usually on

the channel when we film at a restaurant

that has music playing like this we have

to ask them to please uh turn it off for

us while we film just because of

copyright laws uh it really hurt to make

that request here because this is again

like Dr John playing in a New Orleans

themed restaurant uh Steve Miller Band

was the last song that was just on and I

have to ask them to please turn it off

um but let's give the food a try and

then stop talking and also stop eating

because uh it's a lot of rice

today New Orleans Food is amazing

quite surprised to find a decent version

of jambalaya so far away from home it's

I would want it but you know that's I

guess what the local palette wants it's

delicious honestly and the sausage is

as my initial excitement wears

off and I start to realize how much

far today and how much rice we've eaten

time to wrap this up both literally and

figurative­ly I'm going to take this away

all right for our last bit of rice

history we return to where we started

with that very first origin story in

Vietnam except this time not in ancient

history but in the 20th century it's the

last years of the colony of French

Indochina and in spite of what we all

know now was about to happen there was

no sign yet that the country was primed

for a Communist Revolution hell even

hoochi Min was Liv overseas where he'd

been for almost 30 years back home the

biggest concern wasn't one of politics

it was the much more urgent matter of

starvation see the French had realized

there was a big market for exported rice

so they were sending the local stock

overseas and at their factories they

even burned the Vietnamese rice for fuel

when World War II broke out things

became dire the Japanese sent an army to

take control of Vietnam and to keep them

at Bay the French signed a treaty

promising ing Japan a million tons of

Vietnamese rice per year and then after

the two countries entered a sort of

shared occupation it got even worse with

the Japanese seizing even more food

while at the same time forcing

subsistenc­e Farmers to switch to

military production between 1944 and

1945 a catastroph­ic famine gripped

Vietnam particular­ly in the north and

with hoi men now back in trying to Rally

an army he found a winning cause in

promising not political change but Rice

backed by Legions of rice Farmers his

Revolution would pick up support gain

Steam and eventually that would lead to

everything that came after in other

words if the French had simply

understood the life or death importance

of rice the entire course of modern

history might have unfolded differentl­y

and it's possible maybe even likely that

the Vietnam War would never have

happened the truth is there are more

stories like this from all throughout

history it was a R shortage that led to

the fall of the cam rice riots brought

down a Japanese government in 1918 and

India and Pakistan are embroiled in a

bitter Feud over Basmati and that's just

Riceberg if I have one takeaway from

making this video is that there's no way

to properly do it justice that's the

thing about a subject like rice which is

so closely linked to everything from

history Commerce and mythology in

countries across the planet the closer

you look the more layers you find from

ancient China to India to well pretty

much everywhere today rice is the most

widely eaten food on Earth it's grown in

117 of the world's 195 countries and its

consumptio­n continues to increase every

single year it's thrown at newly married

couples at weddings celebrated with

festivals across Asia and Africa and

used in religious rituals in the Indian

subcontine­nt it provides billions of

people with SU Ence and a source of

income and is both affordable enough to

feed a family and diverse enough to

please the best chefs from across the

planet rice tells the story of cultures

Empires and trade and it's a story that

we're still uncovering with new research

continuing to broaden our understand­ing

of just how important this simple grain

has been since the very beginning of

time this might not be a complete

narrative there's so much more we could

still cover more rebellion and origin

Legends and so many more dishes out

there for us to try but for now at the

very least we can say that this has been

our very best attempt at covering the

most important story in the history of

rice subscribe to the channel for more

from OTR thank you so much to everyone

who supports us on patreon it really

helps to keep us going find links below

to our patreon and social media and

week I mean the concept of food Wars is

not new like their stuff like kimchi

fries I mean the concept I mean the

concept of food War is not new like

there's stuff like kimchi hummus

of I mean the concept of food Wars is

not new like let me just take french

yeah I mean the concept of food Wars