Literature. Drinking. 【文飲】

I posted about rice cooking methods a little while ago, with mixed success, but I think I've got it down now.  The secret? Soak the rice overnight . Delicious and sticky after steaming for 20 minutes I had initially thought that I could measure hydration of the rice by how much it expanded, and since it's done expanding after about an hour or so I stopped soaking there.  But what a difference soaking overnight makes! Soaking didn't seem to affect the millet much, which might be why Qimin Yaoshu  says to steam it twice.  It's also probably why I didn't have as much trouble with millet wines. Note how some grains are fluffy and some are still dark I tried steaming a second time since I was steaming the millet anyway, and  poured a little bit of cool water over the rice and millet before returning it to the steamer.  The rice was 100% cooked throughout, as was the millet, although the millet feels a bit dry to the touch. This work is lic...

Previously, I'd struggled with adequately hydrating millet and rice while steaming.  You'd think this wouldn't be a problem, but once the grain is at the temperature of the steam, no more steam will condense on it.  If it's not already wet, it gets hot, but not really cooked. Steaming grain twice (letting it cool in between) helped, as did wrapping the grain in cloth, but not enough.  I was missing something. Reading through  Science and Civilisation in China,  Volume 6, Part 5,  Fermentations and Food Science , which is far and away the most complete and well-researched English-language book on the topic of Chinese brewing, I've spotted a hint. A line from a poem in the  Shi Jing , the Classic of Poetry, this one from the 10th to 9th century BCE: 生民 ... 誕我祀如何？或舂或揄，或簸或蹂。釋之 叟叟 ，烝之浮浮。 ... The given translation for this is: We pound the grain, we bale it out, We sift, we tread, We wash it, we  soak  it, We steam it through...