This passage is adapted from a 1998 memoir by a Japanese American farmer. </p>
<p>In discussing his family, the author mentions Baachan, his grandmother; Jiichen, his grandfather; and Marcy, his wife. Years ago, during a summer break from college, I brought home a newly found obsession with organic foods. Not only would I try to persuade Dad to start farming differently using natural, holistic methods, I hoped to integrate a new philosophy into all of my familys life, including meals. One of my goals was to enlighten everyone to the wonders of brown rice. On the second day home I shocked everyone by volunteering to make the dinner rice. With serving bowls placed in the center of the table, we filled our plates with teriyaki beef, tofu, stir-fried napa, and carrots. I alone heaped a large helping of steaming hot brown rice on my plate. I smacked my lips aloud, trying to induce everyone to share in the new flavor. A half hour later, with a pot full of the rice sitting cold in the center of the table and people nibbling on the meat and vegetables, I got the message that my enlightenment campaign was in trouble. Baachan finally asked, Did someone burn the rice? My sister burst out laughing. Mom stood and bolted for the kitchen. I sat in my chair, weakly smiled, and tried to laugh, too. Dad didnt think it was so funny. He added, with a hungry look, You know, Jiichen ate Japanese rice his whole life and lived almost eighty years. Returning from the kitchen, Mom carried a reheated pot of white rice left over from lunch and we continued the meal. As a child, I understood the difference between the short-grain Japanese rice and the long-grain, grocerystore variety we called Chinese rice, which didnt stick together. Dad purchased our rice at the farmers co-op that he belonged to, a local association formed by Japanese American farmers after World War II. Our rice came in fifty-pound bags that Dad poured into a special three-foothigh round steel can with a lida trash can dedicated to storing rice. Many times he let me help him by steadying the can and Id watch the white kernels stream in, raining against the metal sides, clattering with a rising pitch as the can filled to the brim. I felt as if we were rich. Rice was a daily symbol of Japanese traditions, one of the few that survived generations in America. But could I simply substitute one rice dish for another without disrupting the pattern of the entire meal? White rice brought meaning into our home. </p>
<p>When I tell Marcy my brown rice disaster story, she muses, Perhaps its not what brown rice isbut what it isnt. The way you served it was quite simply not Japanese. Japanese seem to accept cultural differences when there is a clear demarcation of that difference. They use a different written alphabet, katagana, when writing foreign words. Japanese food is served on Japanese dishes, but perfectly tasty-looking Western-style dishes would look odd if presented on a Japanese-style tray. Baachan did not like the time I wore tennis shoes instead of zori slippers with my happi coat. Baachan calls brown rice inaka food, something for peasants. Japanese see it as impure because the bran, which is refined away in white rice, darkens the grain. The stripping of the nutritious bran from rice adds a Japanese flavor, even for me: eating white rice reminds me of home, it makes me feel Japanese American. Yet how do I mediate the health benefits of brown rice with the Japanese diet of white rice? East meets West and the drama unfold atop a plate. I had seen a newspaper cartoon in which the dual worlds of American and Japanese traditions have clashed. In the first two frames, a Japanese American child asks his mother, Whats for lunch? The mother is preparing makizushi, a type of sushi with rice rolled in black seaweed. She answers, We are having makizushi. The son immediately pouts, Yuck, I want hot dogs! Later, the mother calls her son to the lunch table. The mother wears a sage smile, and to the sons surprise, she has his hot dog on his platea wiener wrapped in black seaweed instead of a bun. The cartoon helps me envision a solution that bridges differences and conceive of a new package of culture, one not American nor Japanese but a fusion of the two. Perhaps my brown rice needs packaging, a frame that links the natural food community with a Japanese American sensibility. I imagine a type of brown rice sushi, with the rice encased within nori seaweed, a literal and symbolic wrapping within Japanese tradition. Brown rice then would no longer substitute for white rice on a dinner plate but rather be a creative, alternative form of making and serving food.