In Reply to: Also had tiny stones posted by Wanita on Saturday, 15. March 2008 at 11:47 Bali Time:
When I stayed at a hotel in Lovina, I noticed that the kitchen staff would spend twenty minutes with a large circular bamboo tray tossing the rice into the air and catching it before washing the rice. They removed by hand, all the discoloured grains, stones and husks.
Public servants in Indonesia receive ten kilograms of rice each month as part of their salary. They often complain to me that the rice supplied by BULOG to them is of poor quality and full of stones. BULOG is the state owned company that is responsible for food security in Indonesia. Rice farmers in Indonesia have to deliver a certain proportion of their crop to BULOG. They routinely add small stones to their rice to increase the weight of the rice supplied.
In Australia, the cleanest rice is in the ten and twenty kilogram bags. The rice suppliers reasoning is that this rice is destined for the restaurant trade. Customers would naturally complain if after paying $4 for a bowl of rice, there were discoloured grains and stones in their rice. Lower quality rice is sold in the one kilogram bags and is intended for households. Households particularly non-Asian households are assumed not to be fussy about the quality of the rice.