The cultivation of rice began as early as 6,000 B.C., making rice one of the oldest grains grown for food. Even now, it’s a dietary staple for almost half the world’s population, especially in China, India, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

While the most familiar types are the long-grain white or brown rice, found in most markets, there are actually more than 7,000 varieties of rice. In the United States, rice is grown primarily in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas. It comes in three basic varieties: long-grain, medium-grain, or short-grain. Long-grain rice is four to five times longer than it is wide, and includes such aromatic rices as the highly fragrant basmati and jasmine varieties. When cooked, it’s fluffy and somewhat dry. Medium-grain rice has shorter, fatter grains and a medium starch content, yielding a slightly denser end product that’s suitable for most uses. Short-grain rice (also called pearl rice and glutinous rice) is plump and almost round, with a high starch content that, when cooked, yields rice that is moist and somewhat sticky. Because it’s easier to handle with chopsticks, this is the variety preferred in the Orient.

Brown rice is more nutritious than white rice, and has a mildly nutty flavor and chewy texture. Only the inedible outer husk has been removed, leaving the nutritious, high-fiber bran coating. Brown rice takes somewhat longer to cook than white rice.

White rice has had the husk, bran, and germ—and thus, most of the nutrients—removed. Converted or parboiled white rice contains some of the nutrients of the bran and germ. Instant rice or quick rice has been cooked before being dehydrated and packaged, so it’s quick to cook but also lacking in flavor and texture. Wild rice isn’t a rice at all, but rather the seed of a water grass native to the northern United States. Nor is “wild” rice wild—most is grown in commercial rice paddies.