The Rice Empire Slaves Built, and a President Almost Hanged For!

Hey everybody, it's Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely, and we

are onto a new episode once again with Family Tree Food and Stories.

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So come on over and join us there.

But this episode is all about foods that we enjoy and quietly shaped

the course of human history.

And rice sits firmly in that category of.

and it's hard to overstate its importance.

rice feeds more than half the world every single day.

Not occasionally, , but every single day.

And what strikes me is how something so small, just as little teeny

tiny, well typically white grain, at least that's the one having my

cabinet has become the foundation of.

Societies, it's just amazing.

Empires rose where rice could grow, and communities formed around

civilizations, all around rice.

Families for generations have built their lives around planting and

tending and harvesting it, and yet for most of us, it's just sitting

there on the table kind of unnoticed.

It's, I've got plastic bags of rice here and there all over the

place, and I really don't cook it as often as I probably should.

How about you, Sylvia?

Actually a lot.

You do.

? Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.

We'll get to, to all of that.

I buy fancy rice too.

I spare no dollars and cents on

rice.

but you know, rice, has been carrying humanity for thousands of years.

it's not just food.

, It's a culture.

It's even a belief system to many, many parts of the world.

So today.

We're gonna talk about where Rice began, how it spread, and it does kind of spread

right in, uh, rice patties, and it became so dominant and how it shows up,

not just in history books, but in some of the most beloved dishes in the world.

If you sit down and you think about it, and if you pull the thread of rice, you

realize it's woven into almost everything.

You know, it's an amazing little, teeny, tiny little thing for such

a, a small grain and how important it is.

But rice takes us back about 9,000 years to the Yangzi River based in China.

As you would kind of expect, you know, rice, you get rice

with every Chinese meal.

Right?

And what I found fascinating is that it wasn't just some grand

invention, it was sort of a slow realization and people would gather

around wild rice and over time.

They began to notice certain patterns, which plants grew better, which seeds

produce more, which tastes better, and then something happened at that moment.

Someone somewhere deciding to stay put long enough to experiment,

decided to plant and instead of wander, so we're planting seeds.

Now we've gone from a wandering society to an agrarian society

and civilization cultivated or gathered around those certain foods.

And that was sort of the turning point of everything.

it wasn't corn., For some reason, I always thought it was corn, not rice.

Yeah, I think, corn has its place, but maybe in North America

and with the indigenous culture.

But rice required ingenuity.

You know, it wasn't just planting seeds in dry soil and that, but it was early

farmers figuring out how to control water.

They flooded the fields, to create what we call, guess what.

Rice patties.

Yay.

We've seen them all in the movies, haven't we?

and that was not accidental.

That was actually engineering.

And, if you consider history, I was looking a bit into this in Japan, the.

Culture of Rice Pattying came about about 3000 years ago.

and then I even dug into the cooking of rice.

There's a whole history first, it was boiling it over, an open flame

in water, adding water to rice, to the seeds, and then steaming.

It became popular.

And that's popular today.

And today we have special pots where we can do it.

And it's supposed to.

Yield perfect, perfect rice, which by the way has its own set of controversies.

What is perfect rice?

so early communities were organized around water management systems,

that was the engineering part.

Rice wasn't just feeding people, it was shaping how people

lived together in community.

You know, it's interesting to think about rice patties.

I also kind of conjures up the idea, of course, I'm from New England about, um.

Cranberry bogs because they have the same kind of format.

They're flooded with water anyway.

We'll have to do

something

on cranberries as we've done that all.

But yeah.

But here's the thing that I actually love about rice.

Some of the earliest rice fields show signs of careful leveling in irrigation.

Again, sort of like the cranberry bogs in New England except China

and New England, it's kind of a far.

Distance to hike with my cow to, to plant the seeds.

Anyway, that's for another story, but that means that the farmers were

already thinking about systems and how they were growing food and the

way of their life that was all around those little patties and the fields.

You know, I, I think of rice patties.

It's, it's kind of a funny word,

Yeah.

Rice

I, don't think of it as a patty.

It's like a, a rice bog.

I think we'll call it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, gosh, you got me thinking we should have looked up, Patty.

What does that mean?

P-A-D-D-Y.

and thank you for the cranberry bogs.

That sounds like something out of old Ireland or something.

Fog grazing up over the cranberry bog,

Right.

or the, or like in Ireland where the dead bodies.

Right over the moores.

And the, and the bogs, the cranberry bogs.

I

That's for another

Anyway, another show.

Okay, back on task, focus, focus.

but, once Rice took hold, it spread because it worked.

It produced a tremendous yield for the amount of food of land used.

And this is really important for the history of rice because it's critical

when your population is growing and lives close together, right?

and what really set rice apart is that it thrives in those water log conditions,

bogs, or patties, or whatever we wanna call it, where other crops fail.

So regions that might have been considered marginal for farming

suddenly became productive.

Pretty cool.

I guess we should create rice patties in Florida when they

have a hurricane in the swampy areas.

Right?

Rice

and

got those reeds and all that stuff, you know?

Yeah, rice and alligators.

We'll do that.

Yeah.

But we'll get to that in a minute about another kind of rice that really

isn't rice, but we'll talk about that.

Right, but the type of production actually changed everything.

So you could support larger populations in smaller areas,

which is rather interesting.

And rice, well, it fills your belly.

It does a lot.

that's part of why we see so many dense populations historically

around where Rice grew.

I wouldn't say grow up 'cause that sounds kind of strange, but

rice was growing in those regions and rice stores really well.

Like a lot of different grains.

But once it's dried, it can last for years.

And I think that's true of rice more than it is, let's say wheat grains because well

other things get in there and that kind of stability is really priceless because

it means that you can survive droughts and floods and all sorts of uncertainties

and the starch is good for you.

it's not protein, but I guess it's different kind of protein.

We'll have to look at the

Got a little

bit.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

But there are other layers to this that I think are only now beginning

to be appreciated as rice is becoming an incredibly efficient type of food.

there's so many different varieties,

Oh yeah.

I mean, huge.

Go and look at the grocery shelves.

like I said, there's, white, there's brown, there's all of organic and,

and jasmine.

I'm not

exactly sure what

Yeah, yeah, So yeah, there's all of those.

I've been reading about that too, a a little bit because that's, I think

it's slightly different flavors.

We'll cover some of those, but, it's also efficient on the plate because it

stretches meals and so you think about.

Communities, tight knit, close together, rice patties feeding large populations.

If you kind of think about it, it was food that was on a plate that

needed to have extension of the food.

and you think about rice, it kinda spreads out.

It's bigger than potatoes and it really stretches the meals so

it can feed many people when combined with other ingredients.

If you take a look, it's a lot of times it's beans, it's

lentils, rich with vegetables.

And small amounts of meat.

I do that.

Do you ever make fried rice?

I just did over the weekend.

I guess I was thinking about it.

right.

right.

We,

doing that.

we used to take old rice, especially if it's old and sitting

in the refrigerator and just mix it with all sorts of stuff that

was left over in the refrigerator.

I kind of sort of call it, it wasn't fried rice, I guess it was fried rice, but

we just call it the refrigerator dumped dinner, which is not very appetizing.

But anyway, I think rice also gets misunderstood so many ways today

because we think of it as carbs.

I'm on a low carb diet right now.

It's like no carbs, no sugar, trying to avoid all of that.

So I haven't been eating rice,

I'm gonna talk you into it.

So, but historically, rice wasn't eaten in isolation.

It's a community thing, which is what we're

about here.

It's family tree, food and stories.

People gathered it around

rice

and

you

tacos all, yeah.

Think about all of that stuff that, that springs from, rice.

so it's not about being cheap food, although It is.

it spreads very much, you can make a lot with, just a little bit.

you can put like a cup of rice in and you get a mountain of cooked rice

in your, in from your boiled water.

Rice was about being smart.

It allowed families and communities to create meals that were filling,

balanced and sustainable, even when the resources were limited.

And I thought I'd mention here, nutrition, because everybody's

into protein and fiber, right?

That's the big deal.

It does not complete your protein profile.

It has some protein, but that's not why you would do rice by itself.

you would pair it and notice how many foods are paired with, rice,

with lentils or rice and beans,

and you think

about.

Yeah, it ha it creates the perfect protein profile and I think there's a

reason for that, that maybe we don't have time to go into, but it's like street

food or food that fed a lot of people.

If you had a large family, you would do a lot of those kinds of rice and beans and

all of that, and then it has more fiber.

I was seen about the wars between white potatoes and rice, which is kind of

fun to read a battle war, you know,

between

the vegetables and the grains.

So, you know, they fight each other over, over

prominence and you know, rice has more fiber than white potatoes.

It's gluten-free.

And some of them, like brown rice, has higher protein than the lowly potatoes.

So you see where I'm coming down on this.

You know, I like, I like potatoes just fine, but this rice thing, and they

have that wonderful, nutty flavor.

Yeah, rice, I, I was a rice fanatic for a long time,

and it's been a long while since I've had rice, but I guess.

Could call it the smart food that's out there.

They even pop a rice, but you, talking about rice and beans.

I never even thought about it, but there's a big Hispanic population

where we are, and I see signs on outside of restaurant rice and beans.

And our, lead aid that I relied on for everything with taking care

of mom and dad, Millie, she made a rice and bean dish that she made

for me once, and it, oh my God.

I never thought about putting rice and beans.

I thought it'd be tasteless.

It was good.

It was really good.

it creates the perfect protein profile.

And I'll give you another reason why I like it.

I am not a big meat eater, and yet meat, as we well know,

has the complete proteins.

And right now I'm trying to adjust my diet, but I don't want to eat as much.

So if you combine.

beans and rice, you get a complete protein profile and you don't have to

eat as much, although, like I'll bring leftovers home from the restaurant.

Got accidentally served a whole pork chop the other night.

Well, Bernie and I never eat a whole pork chop each, so brought it home and we

actually got two of them by accident.

I won't explain

why it's crazy, big, nice yuy ones.

So I chopped it up and I made my fried rice with pork, which is

also a, a good way to eat rice.

So.

Anyway, there's an interesting little factoid.

Yeah.

Rice and butter just slab.

Oh gosh.

We're not even gonna go there.

Mm-hmm.

But we have a lot of stories to go over because there's

some really interesting things.

About rice and the history of rice and actually how it got to the states.

But we're gonna take just a quick little break before we get there,

because I'm still a little curious here on the rice and beans things.

We will, we'll have to talk during the break.

You'll fill in on that, but we'll be right back.

So Sylvia, we are bad talking about rice.

And rice arrived in the United States, or Rice arrived in American

South in the late 16 hundreds.

But there's a deeper story that's kind of interesting about that.

The success of rice and cultivation in places like South Carolina and Georgia.

Accidental, the slaves that came over through Africa or were

brought over through Africa.

Just make that proper, I mean, I don't know how to describe that because you

know, that was such a time that.

I find it very hard to fathom.

But anyway, , the, enslaved Africans brought with them a highly sophisticated

knowledge of rice farming, which is interesting because I never even

thought , that even that happened And how to manage the water and build

irrigation systems and then also process the grain properly grinding

in whatever else they wanted to do.

We have rice flour in our kitchen, and you know what, I use rice flour for.

What?

Well, I use it for making my sourdough, not that you put it into

the bread, but when you have a bread dough, and you need to, knead it on

on your countertop.

If you put flour down, it sticks.

If you put rice flour down, it doesn't stick because it doesn't

have, it doesn't have the gluten.

Is that interesting?

Sure.

I love that.

Wow.

and rice wasn't just from Asia, it was also independently cultivated in Africa.

Who knew?

. There are even records of traitors targeting regions known as the rice

coast because of that expertise or teeth.

I never thought about the rice coast, honestly, till we started

researching this and digging into like, I'm I'm gonna look at a pot of cooked

rice a little different next time.

, . That knowledge made rice one of the most profitable crops in America.

And again, it's something that I just like blows my mind.

entire economies were built on it.

So you think of Carolina Rice and one of the bigger varieties is Carolina

Gold Rice, that long grains, slightly nutty kind of rice that is now super

prized and almost disappearing.

Yeah, but it, people may order it and we have it on

the, , menu at our restaurant,

it's specifically says

Yeah, it's Carolina Gold.

It's so good.

So you

don't cheap out for your customers.

I like that.

But then here, here's, here's the story.

I absolutely love this story.

I would've liked to have known Thomas Jefferson, he was a very interesting

fellow, he was a diplomat and one of our founding fathers, and he was

an obsessed foodie, my kind of guy.

Mm-hmm.

And he was also a rice smuggler.

Can you imagine that?

What in the world's that.

Well, let me tell you the story.

He was living in France as the American Ambassador to France from the United

States, obviously, and became convinced that these Italian type of rice from.

Piemonte I hope that's the correct pronunciation.

But Piemonte Rice was superior to what we had in the American

Farms where we were growing here.

So in 1787, he traveled to Northern Italy and he stuffed his pockets with his

rice, kind of a contraband kind of way.

I don't think he would've made it across the lines in like

JFK, he just wouldn't make it

Yeah, the dogs wouldn't have, dogs wouldn't have

sniffed that one out, would they?

No, not unless it's stuffed with some other sign of weed, but,

But, but how, what was the, penalty for that?

What was the penalty?

apparently if you were smuggling out of Italian

areas, death was a penalty.

Italian cities and states did not mess around.

He actually risked execution.

For handful of lowly rice

oh man.

lowly rice,

Oh, Thomas,

that's the most patriotic.

That brings tears to my eyes.

The most patriotic thing I've heard, or the most ridiculous.

He was a politician, so we won't go there,

Okay.

We won't go there.

but maybe he was a little bit of both.

So both a patriotic and a little bit of a smuggler.

Turns out the Italian rice wasn't even better.

It was just cheaper to ship.

So he was a stingy rice smuggler,

Ah,

but.

Still, the man had pockets and he risked his life.

I gotta tell you, anybody who's that crazy, that's, you gotta really

like rice in order to do that.

Especially knowing

the consequences.

Right.

he was wealthy and he had to travel and all that kind of stuff.

He died pennyless though.

He probably thought, yeah, well yeah, but he had it and he spent it.

Well, he could, didn't he?

But, so anyway, I'm sticking with Carolina Gold.

It nearly vanished after the Civil War because that was a bit of a. A jolt,

, But it's revived today and . You can mail order it, you can get it in the stores

and Whole Foods and places like that.

It's good.

It's really, really tasty.

I wonder what the difference between Carolyn and

Rice and like Uncle Ben's, does he even have Uncle Ben's anymore in

You know, I don't do that anymore and I order, I, I get from

Whole Foods, really high-end rice.

I can't remember the brand now, but it comes in all kinds of

things, all kinds of versions.

Balsam, what, what am I trying to say?

Not balsamic.

Um, ah.

Ja, Jasmine

Yeah, you basmati rice.

Yeah.

And I don't, have a super taster in my mouth, but I

do know that rice tastes good

and I get that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, but I, you know, really tasty and the Carolina gold is really tasty.

But, , the other thing we should talk about is the spiritual meaning of rice.

that's universal in all the foods we talk about,

Throwing it at weddings that

they don't do anymore.

So the birds right.

Symbolic.

Yeah.

Many cultures, it represents life, fertility, thus the throwing

of the rice, uh, prosperity.

In Japan, it's sacred.

It's used in rituals, offerings.

It's tied to whole belief systems.

Do you know what kind of belief systems it's tied to?

I guess it's like prosperity and all that sort of good luck,

mobo

the, Japanese probably do ritual about as well as anything.

In fact, I've been reading a lot about ritual and foods are very

frequently used in rituals and the stuff I'm reading is about grief and

recovery from grief, of a loved one,

You always bring food, right?

and it always involves food.

, It's like, I think fundamentally food is the one thing we all do and have to have

to survive, and , as long as we're walking on earth and aren't six foot under,

then food is just symbolic of life.

Comfort, I would think.

In India, it marks all sorts of life's milestones, births,

marriages, deaths, as you mentioned.

It becomes part of, again, this ritual language of comfort and, a

hot bowl of rice in your hands.

It's kinda like a hot cup of tea.

I don't know, it sort of feels like, mom.

mom

and, and think about it, this isn't necessarily

about rice, but it's about ritual.

following a funeral, there's always a big spread of food

and comfort that food brings.

So some of these dishes because they're so ancient, we are a young country.

We've adopted some of that stuff.

Now we have the indigenous population that we have also, gotten.

. A lot of knowledge from, but , food is, part of all of that.

So it's across cultures, about life.

Continuing on until you pass to another form of life is what most

religions and rituals are all about.

And then you celebrate people in the afterlife

I think even the Egyptians, when they bury their pharaohs and

their queens they used to build the pyramids with food too, didn't they?

Yeah.

But there are all sorts of varieties of, rice, which just blows my mind

because it's not just the white and the brown that you see on the shelves.

Like you mentioned, I was in a Sprouts the other day and there was two

shelves of different kinds of rice.

I had

no idea that,

people are gravitating to rice.

Tens of thousands of varieties of rice, but we're not even gonna be

calling some of them actually a rice.

Minnesota Wild Rice, for example, is not all rice at all.

It's actually a, an aquatic grass and say that three times fast.

Right.

Traditionally harvested by Native American tribes like the ani is that how you

pronounce it?

we, oh, oh.

Obi.

Obi.

Uh, I don't know if the J is pronounced Ojibwe.

I'll have to ask my son.

my son.

lives in Duluth, Minnesota,

which

is why I know a lot.

Minnesota girl,

I love Minnesota.

, I would move there, but my husband would divorce me 'cause it's cold up

there and he doesn't wanna ever go cold.

But I love it.

And you can go to any gas station up there and you can buy wild rice by the pound.

I think that's weird.

And it is a grass, but it looks just like rice.

and they called it ? Manoomin.

Meaning good berry and it's harvested from the canoe, which , gently, the

berries are knocked into the boat.

And so it's an interesting thing I've bought wild rice, but I tell

you the best dish in the world.

Okay, you ready?

Wild rice burgers.

They serve them in, every restaurant in Minnesota.

Nothing here.

We don't get 'em here, but they're just so tasty and it's that nutty, nutty flavor.

It's just wonderful.

I love, wild rice burgers.

Tried to replicate it here, but no one's ever really done a

I say ya.

I think you know, it says all the YA thing or something that goes on in Minnesota.

All the like strange language

Yeah.

Remember that movie Fargo?

Yes.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Well, it's a different kind of place, but my son loves it.

Well, when you

gotta bundle up in 6 trillion different

layers.

Yeah, you gotta.

up there.

Area

It is snowing in July probably.

Anyway, saffron is also associated with rice dishes.

It's not that Saffron's, not a rice either, but saffron is those, little

thistle one, the little inner things of,

Yeah.

crocus and it's a specific,

Hey,

we're gonna leave that blooper in,

it's confession time.

Confession time.

Confession time

'cause I researched saffron 'cause I thought it was rice.

You did.

I did.

I swear I did.

Okay.

I told you.

Okay.

So yeah, so, it's from a flower, so, okay, I did.

Confession.

But they do have rice that can be infused with saffron.

but it sound like that, you know, think about it.

Does it

make it big?

name for rice?

Yeah, well, saffron is really super expensive and there's

some other stuff that Bob has that just makes it look like saffron.

When you put it, makes it orangey, I don't know if Saffron

really makes a difference, that much of a difference in a taste.

My palate's not that strong, so I'm gonna have to flunk chef school.

But still, then there's brown rice versus white, white rice, and, , one

retains the nutrients because it stores longer and it doesn't, it doesn't.

Degrade over time, although, have you ever noticed that in a bag of rice, if

it sits in your cabinet for a long, long time, well, yours probably don't sit

there that long, that you get like a powdery substance almost inside the bag.

No, I've never let it happen because I put mine in the freezer.

I just dip out the stuff I need.

'cause I mean, we're just two people and we eat at the restaurant every night.

So it's only like lunch or Sunday that we'll eat at home and there

just isn't enough, you know?

So, and I can't use it.

'cause you buy it in a giant package and you make it and

it creates, like huge amount.

It's like oatmeal, , you make one cup and four cups of water

and you get like this entire

thing so, yeah.

So.

Brown typically is more nutrient, rich.

but white rice is also enriched with a lot of the B vitamins too,

which, is pretty good stuff.

But then there's also global dishes with rice.

So rice really is truly, I Universal food, which is very interesting that

it has spanned so many countries and been able to go from wet rice patties

in the, Asian countries over here.

But rice becomes whatever you kind of need it to be, I guess, from Paella.

, Oh my God, I've made Paella . I haven't done it very well.

I always burn the bottom of the pan because you, it's long, big, flat

pan and there's not a lot of water, but it takes a while to cook down.

So I haven't quite gotten that,

You wanna hear a funny story We serve it with

certain dishes and our bartender years ago, very unsophisticated,

but she was a great bartender.

so here's what she said.

She said, would you like to have some placenta with that meal?

Placenta.

Ew.

No, thank

you

It was legendary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Anyway, just a little aside, okay?

Then risotto in Italy and Jambalaya , I had the best risotto.

Oh my god.

Real quick story.

So I was in New York this past fall doing a a mastermind group for an organization,

and I met my friend Diane, who I've known since, literally since kindergarten.

And we went to this little French restaurant and they had.

Wild smoked mushroom risotto.

Now, I am not a big risotto fan, but that sounded so good.

I had to try It It was amazing.

Mm-hmm.

I haven't had a dish that good in a long time.

So anytime I have a dish like that, I usually ask like, can the chef gimme

some idea how to do, well, I guess the chef must have been French because the

waiter went back and he said, yeah, just look at the menu and take a picture.

Yeah,

sounds like it.

How does Rice turn into risotto?

Do you know the answer to that?

I, I always thought risotto was a pasta, but I'm wrong.

know

that's

interesting, isn't it?

All I know is that it takes a lot of

' water and it's a lot of stirring, and it's creamy, but it's creamy because

it has cheese and other stuff in it.

So

And that's true too.

'cause I like Parmesan risotto.

Yeah.

it takes a long time to cook.

I'll have to, I'll have to try it and report back.

Yeah.

Okay.

and then of course there's Hop and John in the south.

hop and John is so good and it's just basically rice and beans,

but a lot of vegetables, peppers,

onions, all of those good things are in Hop and John, but any kind

of health food store.

Restaurant in this part of the country will have Hop and John on their menu.

So it's, it's a good dish.

, And I don't know how to print it.

Bur Burani and India Wild Rice soups and burgers in Minnesota.

Wild rice soup.

Yes.

Very good.

And every dish tells a story, not just about flavor, but about adaptation

from China to Italy to France.

And they're not telling you what the menu or the recipe is

I know.

to, to Minnesota, to Kentucky.

I don't think of rice being a big deal out in California, but maybe they have.

Well, they're short on water, so probably not,

Mm-hmm.

he never knows.

They just eat fresh food.

Right?

Fruit and

salads.

That's how they stay paper thin, right?

I met

some plump Californians, so,

Uh, anyway, rice absorbs culture.

That's all we know as much as it absorbs flavor and it does do that.

So when you step back, rice connects us across time and across place.

and generations right.

Mm-hmm.

From ancient China to West Africa to yeah.

Carolina Gold, to that wild rice and well, like we said, even Minnesota

darling, it's just misunderstood, but it's never been replaced,

which is really just amazing that rice has never been forgotten.

It seems to be a

new health food.

Yeah, it's more popular than ever.

cause it,

cereal

yeah.

it to be

Yeah, that's right.

Rice puffs or

Yeah.

You know, what are Rice Krispies?

Rice Krispies.

Yeah.

I used

yay.

right?

I love 'em.

And Rice Krispy bars.

Don't forget those.

there's something really quite extraordinary.

it makes enough possible and you can never go hungry with rice,

so.

it's killing.

Right.

There's so many stories about rice and the things that we do around rice,

and I think the big thing ultimately is that it brings us together in

community, which is what family tree, food and stories is all about.

Because yes, every meal has a story and every story is a feast, as we say, but

the stories that you tell over your table, your dinner table, or maybe even

over your puffed rice breakfast cereal is something that we hope you cherish

and share for generations to come.

For now, we'll dish up a pot of rice or cook up a pot of rice, and we'll

see you and we'll hear you next time.

Take care.

Be

well

and chill.

goodbye.