[Sca-cooks] Cool info blurb Japanese rice)

[Terri Morgan]

A friend of mine, Mistress Gisela, is working at a museum and in the course of her duties found a very interesting article about 1000-year-old rice. She gave me permission to share what she'd posted on Facebook. - Hrothny

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This is sort of out of period but I thought some might find it interesting, especially those who follow Japanese culture, cooking and agricultural tidbits. As I'm researching for the Museum's WWI exhibit, I'm reading through 1917 and 1918 editions of the local newspaper in which I find the following.

Mount Airy News, Jan 17,1917

Rice Seeds 1,000 Years Old

Rice grown directly from seed grains 1,000 years old will be served the Emperor of Japan when he attends the autumn maneuvers of the Japanese Army in Shiga prefecture, is a dispatch from Tokyo. The ancient rice grains were found inside a wood image of Vaisravana in a little Buddhist temple in the Village Iwame.

Vaisravana is the god of wealth and his image had become so old as to need repairing. In the course of doing this there was found inside the image a flaxen bag containing the seed and a paper with the following instructions in ancient Chinese characters:
“This image has been carved for the peace of the world. If any one of the later generation open it he should put in new seed.” >From the artistic style of the carving and the traditions relating to the image it was estimated that the seeds were 1,000 years old. They were planted and yielded a good crop. 
Milwaukee Centinel