Rice Porridge Provides a Blank Slate for Cuisines Across the World

I was laid low. Weeks of athletic eating all over South Korea had caught up to me. My exhausted digestive defenses had succumbed to some mysterious invader, and my body revolted—aching, exhausted, rejecting anything I put into it.

My hosts knew what to do. Ordered to bed, I was presented with a steaming bowl of pure alabaster lava. This was juk, rice porridge: nothing more aggressive than white grains and the hot...