From the series - You like it sweet, I like it salted
“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai qui tu es.” (tell me what you eat, I’ll tell you who you are) once said the famous French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in the early 19th century. This aphorism is not only about the food we eat but also how we eat it. Seasoning notably expresses an important part of ourselves. The same food / ingredient / condiment, whether in a sweet or salty version, will sometimes mark a boundary of two cultures. If we push it further, we’ll discover an even more nuanced wonderland.
Riz au lait (rice pudding) and zhou (congee in its anglicised name) are both basically rice grains cooked in a liquid, with a more or less dense texture. The first is a dessert whereas the second is a staple dish. Sweet or salty, that’s where the comfort comes from.
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Riz au lait, literally rice with milk in French, is an extremely popular sweet treat. In a country which boasts the best pastry in the world, some wouldn’t hesitate to name it one of their favourite desserts as it is their “Proustian madeleine” - the taste of childhood. For that matter, the “consensus” among the French is that the best riz au lait is the one prepared in their own family. Although originating in Asia, even consumed salty in the Middle Ages, the French riz au lait took time to become the nation’s comfort food. When Auguste Escoffier - king of chefs and chef of kings - in 1927 codified riz au lait along with all other recipes of French cuisine - the five mother sauces for example - the dessert has not changed since, except gaining in popularity.
My encounter with riz au lait was one of the nice cultural shocks I had when arriving in France. I was having a Sunday meal with Nathalie’s family and some other friends. After an entrée and a main course, both well garnished and delicious, and a generous cheese board, came the dessert. Everyone at the table was excited about it, except me. I could easily see that it was rice cooked in milk, sticky and abundant, not mentioning that it was in the fridge just a few minutes earlier! For me, at the time, rice was a side dish that, consumed hot, went perfectly with, for instance, hong shao pork ribs (red-braised). It was inconceivable to have it as a dessert. Moreover, given all we had already eaten, hungry is the last thing that would describe our physical situation.
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My confusion doubled. Around the table, all I heard was “I always have an extra stomach for a dessert, especially a riz au lait”, “This one is really good, it reminds me of the one my mum prepared for me”, “I love the texture of it, so creamy and smooth”, “Look at this ivory colour, it goes so well with the milky taste”, “The rice grains are perfectly cooked, they are still intact but they melt in my mouth”... Still baffled, I took a small spoon of it, and indeed, it smoothed away my doubts and salved my shocked mind.
Ever since that revelation, I have been pairing congee up with riz au lait despite their obvious differences. In China, we can have congee in the morning as breakfast but also for other meals as a side dish. Occasionally, some would sweeten it but most of the time, it remains plain or seasoned. A typical way to have it in the region of Shanghai is combining it with salty small bites such as fermented tofu or pickles. In the Southern part of the country, especially Guangdong, congee is a soup base in which any other food, from vegetables to seafood, can be cooked, as in a hotpot. A dim sum party wouldn’t be complete without a silky congee, with thousand-year eggs or slices of fish, or even crab marrow in its most noble version.
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The density of congee varies from family to family. Usual steamed rice is made with almost the same volume of water as rice grains; the French riz au lait requires a proportion of 500 ml of milk for 100 g of rice; congee’s need for water is even higher, starting from 6 parts of water for the thickest to even 12 parts for the thinnest. Since it’s just about cooking rice in water, every family has its own way to do it. Stock can replace water, beans or other grains such as millet can be added to it. The gist is having the starch released from the grains so that the congee reaches a desired thickness.
Like for riz au lait, everyone has their own congee from the family and childhood memory. Mine is the one my mum prepared for me when I got sick. She first prepared a medium thick plain congee with white rice. Then she finely chopped pak choi, added it in the congee and cooked it for a little while, enough to make the leaves tender without turning brown. To finish, she slightly salted the congee and sprinkled on some drops of sesame oil. When I saw the fresh green colour of pak choi in a milk-like smoothie with a penetrating nutty aroma, my appetite certainly was piqued. Although I usually preferred wheat flour based food to rice in general, this warm and velvety congee was the only one that could comfort me in my sick days.
Riz au lait as Proustian madeleine or mama’s congee, taste is where the heart is.
Are your taste buds tempted?
Here is the recipe of the famous rice pudding from the restaurants Paris La Régalade, by Bruno Doucet, an extract from the book "Let's eat France!" of François-Régis Gaudry.
If your stomach claims an easy to digest comfort food, here is the recipe of a silky and umami chicken congee, by Fuschia Dunlop.
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