Idli or idly (/ˈɪdliː/; plural: idlis) or iddali or iddena is a type of savoury rice cake, originating from South India, popular as a breakfast food in Southern India and in Sri Lanka. The cakes are made by steaming a batter consisting of fermented de-husked black lentils and rice. The fermentation process breaks down the starches so that they are more readily metabolised by the body. March 30 is celebrated as World Idli Day.
If you want to know how the World Idli Day even came into being:
Meet the man behind World Idli Day.
As you know from Quantum Chapati, from February 2024, on a whim I wrote:
Biofortification: A Primer.
While it opened with Wheat, I also covered Rice. Imagine my utter delight when I received this email on February 20th, 2025:
Dear Dr. Tayur,
I hope you’re doing well. Let me introduce myself—I’m a Principal Scientist at CIAT, CGIAR. I’m familiar with your work and lab, and I recently read your white paper on the scope of quantum computing (QC) in food security and biofortification within CGIAR.
At CIAT, we lead global disease resistance efforts, including rice blast (Magnaporthe oryzae), where a limited understanding of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) hinders durable resistance. To address this, we’re launching an initiative using QC to model interactions among key blast resistance genes. Our goal is to leverage quantum simulations to optimize gene stacking strategies, providing deeper insights into durable resistance mechanisms.
We would love to explore collaboration with you on this pioneering work. Let’s discuss how we can align our efforts to advance global food security. Looking forward to your thoughts.
Of course, we have connected and are working on (another exciting application of Quantum Integer Programming and Machine Learning):
Development of Broad-Spectrum Rice Blast Resistance through Quantum-Enhanced Gene Stacking and Polymerization.
Consider, then, this post as adding to a collection – along with Quantum Chapati, Quantum Karma, Quantum ABBA, Quantum GAGA – that I hope someday becomes (honoring Balzac 
who obviously was referencing Dante’s Divine Comedy):
La Comédie quantum.
While Idli’s history can be traced back to the 9th century, the modern version, as we make it now (with rice, fermentation and steaming), is from 1250 CE.
The history of Rice in India can be traced back to much earlier times:
The Brahmanas, which are texts that elaborate on the rituals and interpretations of the Vedas, mention rice in ritual contexts. The Satapatha Brahmana mentions that the Rigvedic term purodasa (a type of rice cake) refers to rice, indicating that rice was used in Vedic rituals.
