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Rice, the Gift of Dewi Sri
Soul food, the life force and the rice revolution

Terraced rice fields climb the slopes of Bali's most holy mountai, Gunung Agung, like steps to heaven. When tender seedlings are first transplanted, they are slender spikes of green, mirrored in the silver waters of the irrigated fields. Within a couple of months, the fields become solid sheets of emerald, which turn slowly to rich gold as the grains ripen. Although irrigated rice fields cover no more than 20 percent of Bali's arable land, the overwhelming impression is a landscape of endless fertile paddy fields slashed by deep ravines and backed by dramatic mountains.

Rice, the staple food of the Balinese, nourishes both body and soul. As elsewhere in Asia, the word for cooked rice (nasi) is synonymous with the word for meal. If a Balinese has a bowl of noodles, it's regarded as just a snack - without rice, it cannot be considered a meal.
Red, black, white and yellow are the four sacred colors in Bali, each representing a particular manifestation of God. Although the majority of rice cultivated on the island is white, reddish-brown rice and black glutinous rice are also grown. The vivid juice of the turmeric root is added when yellow rice is needed on festive occasions.

A big plate of steamed white rice (usually eaten at room temperature) is the usual way rice is presented, although it appears in countless other guises. The most common Balinese breakfast is a snack of boiled rice-flour dumplings sweetened with palm sugar syrup and freshly grated coconut. All types of rice are made into various other sweet desserts and cakes.

Dewi Sri, the Rice Goddess who personifies the life force, is undoubtedly the most worshipped deity in Bali. The symbol representing Dewi Sri seen time and again: an hourglass figure often made from rice stalks, woven from coconut leaves, engraved of painted onto wood, made out of old Chinese coins, or hammered out of metal. Shrines made of bamboo or stone honoring Dewi Sri are erected in every rice field.

Rice cultivation determines the rhythm of village life and daily work, as well as the division of labor between men and women. Every stage of rice cycle is accompanied by age-old rituals. The dry season, from April to October, makes irrigation essential for the two annual crops. An elaborate system channeling water from lakes, rivers and springs across countless paddies is controlled by irrigation cooperatives known as subak. Consisting of all the landowners of a particular district, the subak is responsible not only for the construction and maintenance of canals, aqueducts and dams and the distribution of water, but also coordinates the planting organizes ritual offerings and festivals. The subak system is extremely efficient and computer studies have found that, for Bali, its methods cannot be further improved.

The so-called rice revolution has had an enormous impact on Bali, as it has on all Asian rice-growing countries. For more than twenty years, the International Rice Research Institute, headquartered in the Philippines, has been developing high-yield rice strains resistant to disease and pests. Bali's traditional rice variety, beras Bali, is a graceful plant that reaches a height of around 56 inches. It has a superior flavor and many Balinese willingly pay up to four times the price of ordinary rice for it. But the most widely used new rice in Bali is the unimaginatively named IR36, developed by the IRRI. This so-called "miracle" rice takes roughly 120 day to mature compared to the 150 days required for beras Bali. It is now grown in 90 percent of Bali's rice fields. Traditionally, the long stems of beras Bali were tied together in sheaves, carried to the granary for storing, then pounded in a big wooden mortar do dislodge the husks when rice was needed. The stems of IR36, however, are short (half the height of beras Bali) and the grains easily dislodged. Thus, threshing has to take place immediately after harvesting practices, including the construction of granaries, are dying out with the introduction of the new varieties. The Balinese acknowledge the superior yield and growth rate of the new plants: in 1979, Bali almost doubled the amount of rice it had harvested a decade earlier.

Since 1984, Indonesia has been able to provide sufficient rice to feed its burgeoning population and can now concentrate on developing varieties better suited to local conditions. Experimenting with rice strains that can, it is hoped, eventually be reconciled with the basic foundations of Balinese culture. Dewi Sri, it seems certain, will continue to be honored and her blessings sought for many more generations.

Copyright by The Food of Bali, Authentic Recipes from the Island of the Gods

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