"Rice paper" has many varieties such as rice paper made from tree bark to make drawing and writing paper or from rice flour and tapioca flour and then mixed with salt and water to produce a thin rice cake and dried to become harder and paper-like. It is used to wrap many ingredients when eating. Vietnam is the only country that creates edible rice paper from the process of making rice noodles and pho noodles. Rice paper is a product constructed of paper-like materials made from different plants. These include: *''Thin peeled dried pith of

Tetrapanax papyrifer ''Tetrapanax papyrifer'', the rice-paper plant (''通草—tong cao''), is an evergreen shrub in the family Araliaceae, the sole species in the genus ''Tetrapanax''. The specific epithet is frequently misspelled as "papyriferum", "papyriferus", o ...

'': A sheet-like "paper" material was used extensively in late 19th century

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

, China as a common support medium for

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

paintings sold to Western clients of the era. The term was first defined in the Chinese–English Dictionary of Robert Morrison who referred to the use of the Chinese medicinal plant as material for painting, as well as for making

artificial flowers Artificial plants are imitations of natural plants used for commercial or residential decoration. They are sometimes made for scientific purposes (the collection of glass flowers at Harvard University, for example, illustrates the flora of t ...

and shoe soles. *'' Xuan paper made from

paper mulberry The paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', syn. ''Morus papyrifera'' L.) is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia,hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of '' Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants ...

and bamboo. *''Dried

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human die ...

sheets of various thickness or texture'': These ''edible paper'' sheets have some properties of pulp paper and can be made from

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

starch. They are known as bánh tráng, used in

Vietnamese cuisine Vietnamese cuisine encompasses the foods and beverages of Vietnam. Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes ( vi, ngũ vị, links=no, label=none): sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish refle ...

Rice paper plant

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, around the 1900s, a paperlike substance was originally known as rice paper, due to the mistaken notion that it is made from rice. In fact, it consists of the

pith Pith, or medulla, is a tissue in the stems of vascular plants. Pith is composed of soft, spongy parenchyma cells, which in some cases can store starch. In eudicotyledons, pith is located in the center of the stem. In monocotyledons, it ext ...

of a small tree, ''

'', the ''rice paper plant'' (蓪草). The plant grows in the swampy forests of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

, and is also cultivated as an

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that ...

for its large, exotic leaves. In order to produce the paper, the boughs are boiled and freed from bark. The cylindrical core of pith is rolled on a hard flat surface against a knife, by which it is cut into thin sheets of a fine ivory-like texture. Dyed in various colours, this rice paper is extensively used for the preparation of artificial flowers, while the white sheets are employed for

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

drawings. Due to its texture, this paper is not suited for writing.

Mulberry paper

This "rice paper", smooth, thin, crackly, and strong, is named as a wrapper for rice, and is made from bark fibres of the

paper mulberry The paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', syn. ''Morus papyrifera'' L.) is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia,origami,

calligraphy Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined ...

, paper screens and clothing. It is stronger than commercially made wood-pulp paper. Less commonly, the paper is made from rice straw. Depending on the type of mulberry used, it is named kozo (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', the

paper mulberry The paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', syn. ''Morus papyrifera'' L.) is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia,soda ash. The fibre is cooked enough when it can easily be pulled apart lengthwise. The strips are then rinsed several times in clean water to rinse off the soda ash. Rinsing also makes the fibre brighter and whiter—fine kozo paper is not

bleach Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color (whitening) from a fabric or fiber or to clean or to remove stains in a process called bleaching. It often refers specifically, to ...

ed, but is naturally pure white. Each bark strip is then inspected by hand, against a white background or lit from behind by a light box. Any tiny pieces of black bark and other debris are removed with tweezers, and any knots or tough patches of fibre missed during scraping are cut out of the strips. The ultimate goal is to have completely pure white bark. The scraped, cooked, and cleaned strips are then laid out on a table and beaten by hand. The beating tool is a wooden bat that looks like a thicker version of a

cricket bat A cricket bat is a specialised piece of equipment used by batters in the sport of cricket to hit the ball, typically consisting of a cane handle attached to a flat-fronted willow-wood blade. It may also be used by a batter who is making groun ...

. The fibres are beaten for about half an hour, or until all the fibres have been separated and no longer resemble strips of bark. The prepared fibre can now be made into sheets of paper. A viscous substance called formation aid is added to the vat with the fibre and water. Formation aid is polyethylene oxide, and it helps slow the flow of water, which gives the paper-maker more time to form sheets. Sheets are formed with multiple thin layers of fibre, one on top of another.

Vietnamese rice paper

"Rice Paper" is created from the process of creating rice noodles and Pho, one of the specialties from rice of Vietnamese people. Rice paper originates from the southern provinces. The Northern and Central provinces also created many other types of rice paper with different names. Rice paper has many types from traditional rice paper, coconut milk rice paper, coconut rice paper, mango rice paper, pandan leaf rice paper, etc. Edible rice paper is used for making fresh spring rolls ( salad rolls) or fried spring rolls in

, where the rice paper is called '' bánh tráng'' or ''bánh đa nem''. Ingredients of the food rice paper include white

rice flour Rice flour (also rice powder) is a form of flour made from finely milled rice. It is distinct from rice starch, which is usually produced by steeping rice in lye. Rice flour is a common substitute for wheat flour. It is also used as a thickening ...

, tapioca flour, salt, and water. The tapioca powder makes the rice paper glutinous and smooth. It is usually sold dried in thin, crisp, translucent round sheets that are wrapped in cellophane. The sheets are individually dipped briefly for a few seconds in warm or cool water to soften, then wrapped around savoury or sweet ingredients. Edible paper is used in the home baking of foods such as macaroons and is often sold separately as colored sheets that are either plain or printed with images, such as bank notes.http://www.frankiescandybar.com/candy/novelty/funny-money-edible-paper/

In the media

In the pilot episode of the television series '' Kung Fu'', Kwai Chang Caine undergoes training to become a Shaolin priest. One of the challenges he faces is to walk on a long sheet of rice paper without tearing it or leaving any marks of his passage. His successful completion of the test is incorporated into the series' opening title sequence, with the narration, "When you can walk its length and leave no trace, you will have learned."

References

{{Paper Paper Food ingredients Rice products

Rice paper plant

Mulberry paper

Vietnamese rice paper

In the media

See also

References