From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman and you're listening to good food.

A few years ago on good food, I had a conversation with Dr. Amber Spry,

assistant professor of African American Studies and Politics at Brandeis University,

where she teaches a class on identity politics in the United States.

Each semester, she begins her class with an exercise she calls a rice breaker

asking students how their family cooked rice growing up. The simple question reveals volumes. When I learned a field

trip in Harlem, the first restaurant in what is now a restaurant group, I was

reminded of this query.

Field trip highlights rice traditions around the world and the chef behind the concept is

J.J. Johnson. He is here to discuss, well, you guessed it, rice.

Hi, J.J. Welcome to Good Food.

It's really great to have you.

How are you?

I'm great.

I'm happy you're here with us.

So we have to know what's your answer to the rice

breaker. How did your family cook rice when you were growing up?

Whoa that's a breaker. My family cooked rice. My grandmother, Iris cooked rice and one of those steel looking pots. She would wash her rice, she would use her finger as a trick to measure the rice.

And those dishes would be anywhere from Arosko Gondondolas to Pia, to chicken and rice, or to the perfect pot of fluffy white rice.

But it was always done on the top of the stove. I understand that it was a trip to Ghana that changed the way that you thought about rice. Could you could you kind of share your thoughts on rice from culinary school to that first taste in Ghana?

Culinary school, I'll start there, it was rice peel off.

That was the only rice and some fried rice and Asian cookery

...