In January 2019, I encountered "pongashi" (puffed rice) deep in the mountains of Yunnan Province.
*Looking back now, it seems to have been a minority bazaar in Laomeng Township, Jinping Miao, Yao, and Dai Autonomous County of Honghe Prefecture.
I learned the name "pakkan" as a child, but I wonder if that's only in Mie Prefecture? The first shop that popped up when I searched was relatively close to where I lived as a child.
http://pongasi.my.land.to/iikata.htm
https://chubum.base.shop/items/65555904
When I was a child, a man in a light truck would come to our house, and he would make it for us with rice, sugar, and 100 yen (I think?). I remember feeling a little embarrassed because our sugar was brown.
As is well known, Yunnan Province has rice and tea, and shares the same laurel forest culture as Japan.
Rice dishes are diverse, including rice noodles (米線) and rice vermicelli (米粉), in addition to grains. In northern China, they write 米銭 for rice noodles, which I believe is a common pattern in Chinese where characters with similar pronunciations are swapped.
As a digression, rice noodles are not written as 麺 (mian). My Chinese friend, Zhang, strongly insisted that 麺 = 麦 (wheat) + 面 (flour), meaning it refers to something made from wheat (and in modern language, it's written as 面), so there's a strict rule.
The same goes for soba. Come to think of it, when modern soba noodles were developed in the Edo period, they were called "soba-kiri" (cut soba), so perhaps the sensibility was the same back then.
In Japan today, most noodles are called "men," but conversely, post-war terms like "Chūka soba" or "Shina soba" also refer to noodles as "soba," making it almost chaotic.
Returning to China, I believe pasta, especially spaghetti, is called "Italimen" (伊太利面). Indeed, it's made from wheat flour, and I'm impressed that it's still a country of kanji, but at the same time, it feels a bit off to a Japanese person.
I'm often impressed by the mixed culture of kanji and kana in Japan.
I've strayed too far.
Yunnan, being a rice culture, naturally has similar things, but pongashi is even more diverse.
The types and colors of rice are probably diverse, and other grains like millet and beans are also used, with various mixes and thin sheet-like solidified forms, making it very varied.
However, it's unclear how they are originally puffed. Are they fried?
I had two kinds bagged and ate them at the guesthouse.
They weren't very popular with Australians or Americans, but recently, I've seen similar things in Europe.
Making them with various grains would expand the nutritional options and enjoyment, which is good.
I think this is also a good idea to broaden the use of rice.