Novelty t-shirts and the iconography of a rice bag

“Rice shirts! Rice shirts! Rice shirts!”

R and I stumbled into Booth 507 of the Arts and Hobbies pavilion of the Canadian National Exhibition, quietly uncomfortable with the cacophony of shoppers, vendors, and wares. We’d found a treasure, almost an inside joke, in a rack of white Gildan tees in an indie apparel shop. Pointing in disbelief, we grabbed a corner of the shirt to get a better look.

Botan brand rice. Calrose, extra fancy, to be sure. Printed, in the exact way as it was on the signature white 20-pound satchels, on the back of a white t-shirt. Glorious. I bought us two, packed in a bright teal bag with complimentary raccoon stickers.

Both children of Chinese immigrants in Toronto, Botan rice was a food of choice in our homes - cheap, filling, and an essential dish with East Asian home cooking. I’m sure R caught a phantom taste in his mouth, too - a fluffy blandness with a hint of sweet. After all, the very bag sat in his own kitchen cupboard. After an exasperating journey home (we’d wandered into the wrong parking lot), we threw the shirts in the wash. They’re still there, I think.

Botan rice is a product of JFC International, under the hefty wing of the Kikkoman conglomerate. Their website posts a brief biography: in 1906, Dupont Company began to import food products from Japan, establishing a Tokyo branch that gained independence about 20 years later. After a couple of re-brands, it joined Kikkoman in the late 60’s. Then known as Japan Food Corporation, the company became JFC International in 1978, relocating to San Francisco. In the next three decades, it would add subsidiaries across North America, including Canada, Mexico, and, of course, the United States. Botan - JFC’s longest-selling line of Calrose rice - is a medium-grain, American variety that shoulders much of California’s rice agriculture. Named after its structural Louisianan predecessor, the “Blue Rose”, Calrose rice remains popular as an easy-to-cook and accessible pantry staple. Its sticky grains make it a suitable option for sushi, too. The United States, however, is a smaller player in the rice-agriculture world stage: China and India remain top producers of rice, with a combined 268 million tons exported in 2019.

Among the roughly 6-million-strong immigrant population in Canada by 2006, R and I - settling as children in the early 2000’s - grew up on dishes we could not name. Fruits and vegetables, taught on Anglophone grade-school flashcards, weren’t often found at home; the produce we did encounter was explained, and prepared, in splashes of tonal epithets and mysterious sauces. Depictions of cuisine in consumer media - Froot by the Foot? - seemed otherworldly. We often grew resentful of our differences.

Food is, universally, a cultural etiology. Origins arise from sourcing ingredients, preparing meals, serving them, and enjoying them. Access to ethnocultural food can build cohesion in multi-cultural identities and encourage cross-cultural modalities. With growing populations of ethnic immigrant groups in Canada, grocers are adapting twofold: ethnocultural grocery locations are expanding rapidly, while “mainstream” Canadian chains have developed market-specific inventories of non-Western foods. In the face of a 14% annual growth rate, “ethnic foods” will become increasingly integral to the Canadian diet. For “ethnic” Canadians especially, access to ethnocultural food seems more crucial than ever.

At $17.97 for 8 kg, a Botan bag sits in my Walmart shopping cart. A frilly red peony marks the front, "BOTAN" in thick lettering above. “Botan” is - as per a quick Google Translate swipe - also written in Japanese kanji and Simplified Chinese (roughly, “Round Peony”). A blue corner banner announces the rice suitable for sushi; a green sticker across the flower declare it a “New Crop”. “U.S.A. NO. 1”, “EXTRA FANCY”, and “RICE” are, per Canada’s federal labelling standards, in French and English. The bag is strangely comforting, a reminder of childhood meal-time whines and the future home-eats of a staggeringly plural Toronto. As we did on our plates, we’ll be sure to enjoy the Botan on our new shirts. ⚫