RICE ON OUR PLATE

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We Filipinos are so used to eating rice that whenever we speak of food we always think of a plate of rice steaming hot from the pot. A luncheon or a supper is not complete unsless there is rice to go with the other dishes. Hence, any rumor of rice shortage has always caused much alarm not only to the housewives, but also to every one who eats rice.
But have we ever stopped to think of the long trip the rice has to make before it reaches our plate?. Have we ever thought of the rice planters "beat from morn till the set of sun," the harvesters reaping the gram-laden stalks in the sweltering heat of the sun, and a number of other workers doing their share in providing us with this staple food?
The backbreaking task of rice planting, the hard, but more rewarding job of harvesting, not to mention the many little chores that have to be done between planting and harvesting time, all this is done by the farmer. But the work doesn't end with the harvest of the palay.

There is the rice miller powdered with rice dust, as he husks the golden grains called PALAY and transforms them to white grains called BIGAS.

There is strong cargador, bent with heavy sack, as he loads and unloads hundreds of sacks of rice from the truck to the bodega or from the to the truck.

There is the rice dealer, always thinking of how he could buy a large amount of rice at low price to hoard it if he can, and later sell it at a much higher price.

There is the rice retailer, too, measuring GANTAS AND GANTAS of these precious grains or weighing kilos and kilos of them all day, until he has become and expert in the job. And finally

There is the ingenious housewife, who has learned a hundred and one ways of cooking rice - from plain boiled rice to the different kinds of rice cakes like PUTO, CUCHINTA, MAJA, BIBINGKA, and other delicacies.
What a long trip a grain of rice has to make before it reaches the plate we eat on! How many hands have taken care of it along the way.

By: @aaronplando