[Sca-cooks] wild rice

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear respoNded to me with:

>> Needs _Wild_ rice!
>
> Except "wild rice" isn't a rice. It's a grass. Another bit of trivia
> picked up from this list. :-)
>
> But then I guess trying to sell "wild grass" has problems from a
> marketing standpoint.
>
> Stefan

Rice is also a grass.  Collectively, the grain producing grasses (wheat,
oats, corn, rice, etc.) are referred to as cereal grasses.  When you  
include
plants like buckwheat and amaranth, the collective term is cereals.
-----

Okay. Now I can't find the original comment, although it had altered  
my thinking on "wild rice". Perhaps the comment was more on the lines  
that "wild rice" wasn't a true rice, but a grain/grass.

It looks like I don't have that much in the Florilegium on "wild  
rice". Some of implies that it might be a New World plant rather than/ 
instead of an Old World plant.

Here is a pair of Florilegium messages I ran across in my search that  
I thought some of you might be interested in:

=========
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 15:17:15 +0200 (METDST)
From: Par Leijonhufvud <parlei at ki.se>
Subject: Re: Wild rice (was: SC - Newcomers Redaction)

On Fri, 10 Oct 1997, Phyllis Spurr wrote:
 > I didn't know this.  Boy every day I learn something new on this  
list.

Actually you might just have confused two different things in your
terminology (I just saw your othr post with the redaction). Wild and
brown rice is not the same thing.

Brown rice: the health food stuff. Basically a "unhusked" regular rice.
The price is about the same as regular rice, perhaps a bit higher.
Brownish in color, and has, in my opinion, much more character than
most regular white rice.

Wild rice: a grain that grows in some lakes in the Great Lakes region.
It is longish grains, black with some of the white interior showing
through. Price is _high_ due to the fact that it is harvested
from a wild crop. The package should say something about indians
on it ;-)

 > > Personally I would have considerd using "aviori" style rice, but  
I have
 > > no idea if this kind was widely available in Europe in our  
period, if at
 > > all. Anyone?
 >
 > What is "aviori" style rice.  My knowledge is sadly lacking on rice,
 > personally, I dislike rice.  Comes from "having" to eat it!

Basically a cross between brown and white rice (it's about  
processing, not
species difference, but the effect is like a hybrid). More acceptable to
the "white rice" crowd, but still has much more of the nutrients left
(white rice is not a good idea, nutritionally speaking).

As I stated earlier I would love to hear someone (with better knowledge
than I have) tell us about what kinds of rice were available where  
and when.
Probably thesis level stuff, though, unless it has already been done.

/UlfR
- --
Par Leijonhufvud                  par.leijonhufvud at labtek.ki.se


Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 11:15:37 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Polished Rice

Rice was imported into the Caribbean on Columbus' second voyage.

There are native varieties (both long and short grain) scattered across
both the New and Old Worlds.  Reay Tannehill in Food in History suggests
that rice appears across a broad belt in the regions which formed
Gondwanaland.  I haven't tried to chase the paleobiology on that one,
it's worse than beans.

Bear
===========

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****