Congee

Congee (British English: /ˈkɒndʒi/; or conjee) is a type of rice porridge or gruel popular in many Asian countries. When eaten as plain rice congee, it is most often served with side dishes. When additional ingredients, such as meat, fish, and flavorings, are added while preparing the congee, it is most often served as a meal on its own, especially for the ill. Names for congee are as varied as the style of its preparation. Despite its many variations, it is usually a thick porridge of rice largely disintegrated after prolonged cooking in water.

Origins

In ancient times, people named the thick congee chan, the watery one chi or mi. The characteristics of congee are that it is easy to digest and very simple to cook. Congee is one of the traditional Chinese foods and has thousands of years of history in China. The Zhou Book says "Emperor Huang Di was first to cook congee with millet as the ingredient", that may be considered the earliest record of congee. The word congee comes from Tamil கஞ்சி (kanji), a prominent food of ancient Tamil people. The English form may have arrived in the language via Portuguese. In other Asian cultures, it is also called hsan pyok (Burmese), kanji (Tamil/Tulu), kaṇhji (Malayalam),pakhal bhat (Odia), ganji (Kannada/Telugu), baw baw (Khmer), juk (Hakka, Cantonese, Korean), muay (Hokkien and Teochew), zhōu (Mandarin), cháo (Vietnamese), deythuk (Tibetan), chok or khao tom (Thai), kayu (Japanese), lúgaw (Tagalog), Bubur or kanji (Indonesian and Malay) or jaou (Bengali) which is derived directly from the Chinese character 粥 (zhōu, which means gruel), canja (Portuguese). It is also called 稀飯 (pinyin: xifan; Wade–Giles: hsi fan) in some Chinese provinces.