Sri Owen grew up among rice-fields with people who did not consider rice at all exotic, though they did believe it contained traces of magic. In this book she presents a wide-ranging collection of rice recipes gleaned from countries as diverse as Turkey, Finland, Indonesia, India, Italy and Japan. There are meals to suit both timid and ambitious cooks, and they include soups, appetizers, first courses, one-dish meals, main courses, cakes and sweet dishes. Roger Owen's introduction describes the many uses of rice, and its powerful role in the world as food, crop and commodity, as well as its influence in mythology across many cultures, with rice spirits and goddesses inhabiting a rich tradition of fables and rice lore.