them soft and malleable, then pressed between rollers to make them thin and quick to reabsorb water during cooking or simple soaking (as for muesli) The thinner the oats are rolled, the faster they rehydrate: regular oats are about 0.8 mm thick, “quick-cooking” oats are around 0.4 mm, and “instant” even thinner Rice Rice is the principal food for about half of the world’s population, and in such countries as Bangladesh and Cambodia provides nearly three-quarters of the daily energy intake Oryza sativa is a native of the tropical and semitropical Indian subcontinent, northern Indochina, and southern China, and was probably domesticated in several places independently, the short-grain types around 7000 BCE in the Yangtze River valley of south-central China, and long-grain types in Southeast Asia somewhat later A sister species with a distinctive flavor and red bran, Oryza glaberrima, has been grown in west Africa for at least 1,500 years Rice found its way from Asia to Europe via Persia, where the Arabs learned to grow and cook it The Moors first grew large quantities in Spain in the 8th century, then somewhat later in Sicily The valley of the Po River and the Lombardy plain in northern Italy, the home of risotto, first produced rice in the 15th century The Spanish and Portuguese introduced rice throughout the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries South Carolina was the location of the first commercial American planting in 1685, where the ricegrowing expertise of African slaves was important; today most U.S rice comes from Arkansas and the lower Mississippi region, Texas, and California Kinds of Rice There are thought to be more ... Persia, where the Arabs learned to grow and cook it The Moors first grew large quantities in Spain in the 8th century, then somewhat later in Sicily The valley of the Po River and the Lombardy plain in northern Italy, the. .. the Lombardy plain in northern Italy, the home of risotto, first produced rice in the 15th century The Spanish and Portuguese introduced rice throughout the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries... South Carolina was the location of the first commercial American planting in 1685, where the ricegrowing expertise of African slaves was important; today most U.S rice comes from Arkansas and the lower Mississippi region,