Rice belongs to both annual and permanent kinds of grain crop gramineous plants. The word "rice" came to Russia only at the end of XIX century, before that paddy used to be called Saracen crop or Saracen wheat, and then the name morphed into famous Sorochinskoe millet. Paddy cultivation started around 9 thousand years ago. Some historians think that there were at least two cultivating centres, which resulted in forthcoming of two main sub-sorts of cultivated paddy: Oryza sativa japonica, bred in southern China, and Oryza sativa indica, which originates southward to Himalayas - in eastern India or western Indo-China. Other historians consider Oryza sativa japonica to have deeper roots of origin, they offer a theory that modern sub-sorts of cultivated rice emerged as a result of artificial selection after initial cultivation of the crop at Chang Jiang River Valley.

Had the crop been processed in different ways, one and the same sort of rice would have different colour, taste, nutritional properties and cooking time. Different processing techniques put forward rice subdivision into brown, white (white grind rice is the most widespread type) and steamed one (special steam procession allows to keep vitamins and minerals in grains, rather then in bran). Rice in Ukrainе just like in many other countries of Europe becomes more and more popular.

The most widespread sort of rice is long-grain rice, used to cook palaw, garnish and dessert. It takes around 20 minutes to cook this type of the crop. Traditionally Thailand red rice has recently been cultivated in southern France. It takes around 45 minutes of boiling to cook red round paddy, but if you steep it in water for one night, cooking time will be reduced to 25 minutes. Round-grain rice, also known as a milky one (this type is mainly used to cook porridge), is cultivated mainly in Italy, that is why you can find it in almost all Mediterranean meals such as risotto and all kinds of soups. Its tackiness is the main reason why it is used to cook sushi, cooking time of such rice is around 20 minutes. Unpolished rice contains a lot more minerals and vitamins of the B group. It is very often used as a part of diet meal. Cooking time of the paddy is 25 minutes. Steamed rice undergoes special steam processing – technology used to increase quality of the crop. After paddy had been steeped in water it is processed by hot steam under pressure. And having undergone such a processing, grains are dried and polished just as at any other type of rice processing. Steamed rice grains become amber yellow and translucent after the processing. Steamed rice has its advantages over other types of the crop: around 80% of vitamins and minerals of bran shells is transferred to grains that become less fragile after the processing. After steamed rice is cooked, its yellow color disappears and grains become as snow-white as the white polished rice. However, it takes around 20-25 minutes to cook steamed rice, because processed grains become harder and it takes more time for them to be boiled soft when compared to ordinary rice. Steamed rice grains never get stuck together and remain tasty and friable even after meal reheating.