New Rice for Old?
Annette Bingham on the historic nature of Philippines food.
Historic rice terraces, carved from the steep slopes of the Cordillera mountains in the northern Philippines, are described in guide-books as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World' and are widely held to be 3,000 years old.
For generations, the terraces have been tended by hill tribes whose culture revolves around rice. Rice wine is essential to religious rituals and mysteries and sculpted wooden rice-god figures (bulol) are still carved in the mountains. The timeless annual cycle of planting, transplanting the seedlings, harvesting the ripe grain and maintaining the spring-fed irrigation systems shaped a social system in which community co-operation was paramount.
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