[Sca-cooks] Partly OP: Brown vs. white rice?

[Daniel Myers]

On Feb 15, 2004, at 10:45 PM, Terry Decker wrote:

> Period (and often modern) European rice production was in the Ebro 
> Delta of
> Spain, the Caramague of France, parts of Italy and Sicily.  Rice 
> growing was
> not a happy occupation (or overly successful) in the Caramague of the 
> 16th
> Century as is documented in the Quiqueran de Beaujeau's "De laudibus
> Provinciae."  Spain and Italy were better producers and the Spainish 
> brought
> rice production to the New World early in the 16th Century.
>
> Had rice been imported from the Far East it would have been as 
> expensive as
> spices and would not have been used in the quantities the recipes 
> require.

How early was rice grown in Spain and Italy?  Rice is featured in many 
English sources from the 14th and 15th centuries.  Also note that 
saffron is one of most common spices referred to in "Two 
Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books" - it appears to have been used 
extensively in spite of its cost.  Sugar was brought in to England from 
Cyprus and was still used quite heavily.

Further, the preservative effect of de-germing the rice would still be 
important if the rice were imported to northern Europe from the 
Mediterranean basin instead of from the Far East.

- Doc


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  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
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