The Story of Sister Si, a Woman from Penghu: A Bowl of Colorful Rice Cooks Up the Future
I had always held a naive misunderstanding of the three words ”dried sweet potato shreds,” and it was only when I came to Penghu that it suddenly dawned on me, and because of that, I fell in love with ”sweet potato shred rice,” an old-time Taiwanese flavor. The versions I had eaten before were all white rice paired with white sweet potato shreds, and I already found them very tasty; then one day, I got to try Fourth Sister's ”colorful sweet potato shred rice,” and the only word for it was ”stunning.”
Sweet potato shred rice really cannot be called a ”dish,” but honestly, with a pot of rice like this, you can easily finish a bowl even with no other dishes at all. No problem!
Fourth Sister deliberately grew three or four kinds of sweet potatoes in different colors, and after harvesting she grated them into shreds, then sun-dried them and stored them away. When cooking white rice she puts some in, or adds a few fresh ones to mix things up, and then it turns wonderfully colorful.
The sweet potatoes we commonly see come in at least a yellow and a red variety, and Penghu has many varieties that are much paler than yellow, close to white, which are often used for sweet potato shreds. Add the purple sweet potato, which most people rarely see, and cook it together with white rice, and it looks especially vivid! So when I say ”stunning,” I am not just saying it casually, I really did encounter the ”stun.”
There is nothing much to say about cooking sweet potato shred rice; it is the same as cooking rice normally, just with sweet potato shreds added in, and no extra water is needed. Fourth Sister in particular uses a pressure cooker, and she says you can use even a little less water than with a rice cooker or electric rice cooker, because the moisture in a pressure cooker does not escape and all stays in the rice. She especially praises how handy a pressure cooker is, saving electricity and gas, and being fast; it is also perfect for cooking red bean soup. Although buying a pot costs quite a bit of money, it really can be used for a very long time....
Speaking of that, we started trying to figure out just how long the pot in her hands had been used. The answer: 15 years. Fourth Sister always factors the ”future” into the ”present,” choosing tools that save time and energy over the long run. That is something only a person who is very confident about her own ”long-term use” can do! I admire this greatly, because I am exactly the kind of lazy person who is rather short-sighted and always wants to make do with whatever is simplest.
Still, naming it rice of the future was not only because of that pressure cooker; the main thing is that [sweet potato shreds], that one thing, stirred up my naivety.
