Sticky rice is cooked by steaming, not boiling. The rice is soaked in water overnight, then placed in a cone-shaped bamboo basket over a pot of steaming water. After about 20 minutes, the rice is sticky, fragrant, and perfect. Each family has its own bamboo steaming basket, often beautifully woven.
To eat, you reach into the basket, pinch off a small ball of rice, and roll it gently in your hand to make it round and firm. You then press it against a piece of food - vegetables, a sauce, a piece of fish - and pop the whole thing into your mouth. It is surprisingly satisfying to eat with your hands.
Sticky rice is served in a small woven bamboo pot with a lid, called a 'tip khao'. Each person at the table has their own. The rice stays warm inside and the lid keeps it fresh. After eating, the basket is washed and used again for years - sometimes passing down through generations of the same family.
The rice is grown in flooded paddy fields across Laos. Planting and harvesting rice is one of the most important activities of the farming year, and festivals and ceremonies are often timed around the rice harvest.