Rice soup, also called rice oil, is a layer of porridge oil condensed on the surface of the pot when porridge is cooked or dry rice is cooked with polished rice. Rice soup tastes sweet and flat, can nourish yin and strengthen tendons, and has a good nourishing effect. Wang Shixiong, a famous doctor in the Qing Dynasty, said in his book Diet Spectrum with Interest: "It is a miracle that the poor suffer from deficiency and use thick rice soup instead of ginseng chicken soup." In other words, the poor can't afford ginseng, and Jiangnan people often use rice soup as ginseng chicken soup, which often works wonders.

Why does rice soup play such a big role? There is an explanation in Compendium of Materia Medica: "Rice oil is really powerful, and people are the fattest. Black and thin people eat it and become fat and white in a hundred days. It is better to nourish yin than cultivated land. " Rehmannia glutinosa, the reproductive body of Rehmannia glutinosa, is a commonly used blood-enriching drug in traditional Chinese medicine. So people who can't afford ginseng, babies who don't have milk to eat, can really keep fit by drinking rice soup. Zhang Xueliang is in good health as an adult. Needless to say, it was rice soup that made up for his congenital physical defects.

However, the rice soup mentioned here must be cooked in a big pot of rice, and it must be sticky to be effective. It is not acceptable if the rice is too small or too thin.

Coincidentally, the upsurge of "rice porridge" in China in 1980s proved the rationality of "rice soup nourishing" from another side. Guangdong's "rice porridge" is not what people call white rice porridge, but rice porridge cooked with slow fire. During the cooking process, rice slurry is continuously added to make the porridge soup sticky and the rice oil component fully overflows, so rice porridge becomes the first choice for the physically weak.

Rice soup contains a lot of inorganic salts such as nicotinic acid, vitamin B 1, B2, phosphorus and iron, and some nutrients such as carbohydrates and fats. Rice soup is sweet and has the functions of benefiting qi, nourishing yin and moistening dryness. Drinking is conducive to the healthy development of children and contributes to the digestion and absorption of fat. Rice soup is ideal as an auxiliary drink for babies.