Rice

The Lao eat more sticky rice than anyone else in the world – it is served in woven baskets and eaten with the fingers.

Sticky (glutinous) rice is a group of rice varieties whose grain contains almost nothing but amylopectin and hardly any amylose. As a result, after steaming the grains stick together into a firm, slightly sweet mass that is easy to roll into balls. In Laos it is grown both in flooded lowland paddies and by shifting cultivation on mountain slopes, where it grows without flooding. Sticky rice is also used to make sweets, banana cakes and the strong rice spirit lao-lao.

Significance in the country

Sticky rice is the foundation of Lao identity – the Lao jokingly call themselves “children of sticky rice”, and their annual per capita consumption is the highest in the world. It is served in tip khao bamboo baskets with every meal.

Where it grows

Throughout the country – most of all on the fertile plains along the Mekong (Vientiane, Savannakhet, Champasak), and in the north on terraces and upland fields in the provinces of Luang Prabang, Oudomxay and Houaphanh.

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