Instructions: Nothing could be more basic than cooking rice. On this, the rice-eating world agrees.

You heat water to a boil (dont add any salt, unless you want to).

You stir in rice (if you didnt add it to the cold water), which you have rinsed three to five times (if you dont mind rinsing the vitamins away).

Then you simmer it covered (or uncovered) until all the water (or most of it)

is absorbed. Dont peek! (Well, you can peek. You have to peek.) Then let it stand. Dont stir it, especially not right after cooking, and if you do stir it, dont use a spoon. Unless its a wooden one, barely moistened with cold water.

Yes, rice is basic. But that doesnt mean its simple.

As with any cultural staple - the baguette in France, the hot dog in Chicago - rice may be just too important to agree on. Whether in an American suburb or a Malay village, people who depend on a daily (or thrice-daily) batch of rice have strong opinions on the best rice, and on the best way to cook it.

Some differences boil down to the culture, the country and the kind of rice under consideration: No sensible person would try to cook short-grain sushi rice, for example, according to the directions on a bag of American long grain.

(Result: mush.)

The source can be important, too: American-grown jasmine rice, a fragrant type familiar in Thai restaurants, "often needs a smidge more water" and longer cooking than the same species imported from Thailand, says Naomi Duguid, who wrote the globe-trotting 1998 manifesto "Seductions of Rice" with husband Jeffrey Alford.

The most foolproof method? A rice cooker. You press the button and, in half an hour, the rice is cooked.

Personal opinions start when you buy the rice, if you are a confirmed rice eater. If you are inside your rice culture, you are going to buy a rice that suits your purpose. And those are pretty specifically defined.

Not so in the mongrel United States. Whatever kind of rice you desire is obtainable: sweet glutinous rice (a special-purpose rice if there ever was one), Japanese short grain grown in California, jasmine rice, boxed basmati, Mexican medium grain and plain old Riceland long grain. Your own local supermarket may surprise you.

Which leads to the question, "Whats the best way to cook this bounty?" To rinse or not to rinse? Most rice aficionados insist on rinsing the grains beforehand, to remove powdery starch that can gum up the batch. But rinsing also removes the sprayed-on vitamins that millers add to white rice, which is missing its nutrient-rich bran.

Advocates for rinsing rationalize that a well-balanced diet doesnt need its rice vitamin-ized. Make your own decision. Certainly, though, theres no need to rinse rice for such dishes as pilafs and risottos.

Parboiled rice, which Uncle Bens calls "converted rice," appeals to Americans because it is a foolproof, no-rinse route to dry, separate grains, even if it does take longer to cook and has an odor and flavor unlike other rice. It has another advantage: The parboiling drives some of brans nutrients into the starchy white part, where they stay until you eat them.

In "Seductions of Rice," Duguid and Alford venture briefly into food science to assign one of three basic cooking methods to any given rice.

They base the choice on the rices waxiness (sweet or glutinous rice is waxier and therefore stickier) and at what temperature the rice gelatinizes its starches.

Fascinating, no? No. But it does help make sense of the rice worlds seemingly random and contradictory assortment of cooking instructions.

Sri Owens "The Rice Book" doesnt fuss much about assigning specific rice types to specific methods. She also breaks your choices down to three: steaming, boiling (which Alford and Duguid call the "lots of water method") and the familiar absorption method, which cooks the rice in a closed pot with only as much water as the grains are supposed to absorb.

"Supposed" to absorb. Thats the problem that keeps rice cooker sales high. Sometimes the rice absorbs all the water in the time specified; sometimes it doesnt.

What we wanted were guesswork-free techniques for turning raw rice into the perfect accompaniment. There are three that worked well for several different types of rice, but produced three distinct textures: a slightly clingy version suited for Chinese food, a dry and separate end result, and a moist but reasonable fluffy variation.

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