MY shelves hardly creak with books devoted to rice. Just the two and that’s surely enough? They are The Rice Book by veteran foodie Sri Owen and Every Grain of Rice by fragrant Sinophile Fuchsia Dunlop, which concentrates on the grain’s role in Chinese home cooking. There are three time as many books in worship of that other staple, the potato, and bread manuals stretch as far as my resident sourdough can.
So when a third rice volume comes along called Pimp My Rice (no, I don’t remember either the old MTV series Pimp My Ride about customising jalopies) I questioned the need.
More fool me? This eclectic global tour of rice's many manifestations wears its knowledge lightly while providing a wealth of cookable affordable recipes. It ranges from builder’s breakfast bowl to gold leaf and white truffle risotto, taking in juniper and lemon curd rice pudding.
It’s the work of Nisha Katona, Liverpool barrister turned YouTube curry evangelist, who opened Mowgli street food restaurant in Liverpool, inspired by her family’s Calcutta heritage, opened a second in Manchester’s Corn Exchange and has further plans for Liverpool and Leeds.
And there was me, admittedly a Mowgli fan, expecting a spin-off along the lines of fellow indie chains Hawksmoor, Comptoir Libanais and Red’s True Barbecue, fellow culinary cuckoos in our city.
I like all three places and have cooked from each book, but all are likely to pose pretty pristine on my shelves, whereas Pimp My Rice goes against the grain and may well join the well-thumbed and food-stained regiment by the stove. Rice is a food you can easily take for granted but shouldn’t.
As NIsha says in her introduction: “I think this is borne from my guilt. Guilt because for years, I overlooked rice as an anodyne, pasty-faced accompaniment-always the bridesmaid and never the bride.
“In the west we treat this grain of grains like a second class citizen. Its cooking techniques confound Western adults when in the East, children can cook it before the can pronounce it. I wanted to lift the veil on rice and its misunderstood magnificence.
“It is the world’s most nutritive and widespread staple. We need to get to grips with the grain and I don’t know of a book that helped me do this. Hence, I wrote one.”
Nisha will be signing copies of Pimp My Rice (Nourish Books, £25) and doing a cookery demo at Waterstone’s on Wednesday, May 4 at 7pm. Tickets are £4.