不必把自己磨成純白
白米軟糯，放得久。代價是它最香的那一層，在碾米那一步就落了下來。
稻穀脫殼之後是糙米，再碾一次，外層的皮與胚芽化成粉屑落下，那就是糠。一粒米的油脂與香氣，幾乎全都在那裡。同一層之內還有分解油脂的酵素，所以米糠極容易走味，新碾出來只有幾日光景。
為了讓米能夠長久存放，人把那一層磨走，只留下潔白而穩定的米芯，味道也就淡了。米糠原精取的，正是那一層落下的粉屑。
初聞就像剛掀開飯煲蓋時撲面而來那一陣帶甜的熱氣。氣味往下沉，底下墊著玄米茶與花生衣的溫潤，尾段留一點曬過稻草的乾香。
「糠」在中文裡本來就是粗賤的代名詞，糟糠二字說的正是最粗的那口糧。可是江戶時代的女性，會把這些粉屑裝進小布袋，沾水用來洗面。被丟下的那一層，在別處反而被人留住。
會發香的與會變壞的，本來就住在同一層。把自己磨得越白，越嚐不出本來的味道。
乾淨是好的。只是記得留一點自己的味道。
以香為語，安在當下。
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.
Don't refine the taste out of yourself.
White rice is soft, and it keeps. The price is the layer that carried its scent, lost at the milling step.
Hulling gives brown rice. Mill it once more and the outer skin and germ fall away as pale dust. That dust is the bran. Almost all of the oil in a grain sits there, and so does the smell. The enzymes that break that oil down sit there too, which is why fresh bran has only a few days in it.
That is what refined means here: the grain without the part that gives it flavour, which is also the part that goes bad. What is left keeps for years. People do a version of this to themselves, putting away whatever is most likely to cause trouble, and life gets safer and a little flatter. Rice bran absolute is made from exactly what fell.
It opens like the sweet steam that rises when a rice pot is lifted, settling into roasted brown rice tea and peanut skins, with dry straw at the end.
In Chinese, bran is a byword for the coarsest food there is, the grain you ate when there was nothing better. Yet in Edo, women filled small cloth bags with that same dust and washed with them. What gets thrown out first is often what someone else holds on to.
What gives scent and what goes bad live in the same layer. Take one out and the other goes with it.
Clean is good. Keep a little of what gives you flavour, even the part that will not last.
Grounded in the present, spoken through scent.
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.