Ancient Hill Rice Rediscovered
February 19, 2018 3:13 PM   Subscribe

A staple of African cooking that was thought lost was found in a small field in Trinidad. The fat, nutty grain, with its West African lineage and tender red hull, was a favored staple for Southern home cooks during much of the 19th century. Unlike Carolina Gold, the versatile rice that until the Civil War was America’s primary rice crop, the hill rice hadn’t made Low Country plantation owners rich off the backs of slaves. The search for the missing grain led to Trinidad and Thomas Jefferson, and now excitement among African-American chefs.

Limpin' Susan an okra stir-fry with rice, is a riff on Hoppin' John, a traditional Southern dish.
posted by MovableBookLady (15 comments total) 46 users marked this as a favorite
 
Here's an interview with the chef who helped to rediscover the hill rice. It's a really interesting story.
posted by Ashwagandha at 3:16 PM on February 19, 2018


My god I hope they make those Trinidadian farmers that preserved the crop rich and not just make hill rice the next big feel good pat ourselves on the back food once it's recommercialized in the states by people with access to capital.
posted by Karaage at 3:44 PM on February 19, 2018 [35 favorites]


Well, to be fair, it's likely to remain a niche crop, not likely to make anyone rich. But it would be good to see compensation of some type flowing their way.
posted by tavella at 4:06 PM on February 19, 2018


Mr. Roberts arranged to have about 80 pounds of the Trinidad rice shipped to the United States. A few pounds made its way to Edouardo Jordan, the Southern chef who opened the restaurant Junebaby in Seattle last year. Mr. Jordan cooked with it and loved it.
Mr. Jordan is so enamored that he is trying to find farmers in the Northwest to grow it, once the seed is approved by the Agriculture Department.
“If we can bring this back,” he said, “the historical back story could deepen the development of African diaspora food in America and better tell the real story of Southern food.”


Huh. I was wondering if he'd show up in this, Edouardo Jordan has been huge on highlighting historical Southern cooking. Ex: http://robbreport.com/food-drink/dining/interview-edouardo-jordan-southern-food-seattle-eg17-2765562/
posted by CrystalDave at 4:48 PM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Land rice is a significant find, crops requiring less water, or more versatile survival qualities are valuable to all people but especially to people of minimal means.
posted by Oyéah at 5:18 PM on February 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


It is a neat article and I knew it would make it here sooner or later. I also hope that the farmers in Trinidad benefit in some way from this.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:51 PM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Very interesting article. Also, I would like some rice now please...
posted by UhOhChongo! at 6:37 PM on February 19, 2018


I don't understand this article. If this rice comes from West Africa and is "a staple of African cooking", why isn't it still to be found in West Africa? Why would "cheaper imports that were easier to produce and ... the Great Migration" have wiped it out there?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 6:52 PM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I don't understand this article. If this rice comes from West Africa and is "a staple of African cooking", why isn't it still to be found in West Africa? Why would "cheaper imports that were easier to produce and ... the Great Migration" have wiped it out there?

The sentence you quote is about the US -- it "all but disappeared" from the US south because people stopped growing rice because of cheaper imports and because millions of people left the farms and moved north.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:40 PM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Metafilter: Fat, nutty grain
posted by slater at 8:08 PM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wikipedia: Oryza glaberrima

It sounds like this particular cultivar might have been lost for a while, others definitely still exist in Africa. So this is more exciting for culinary and historical purposes vs. scientific and botanical.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:02 PM on February 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ofada rice. Note how this and the ref above don't quite agree, but maybe that's specific to Nigeria. I personally don't believe the origin story quoted for ofada rice, which sounds to me more like marketing than anything else since glaberrima's native to Africa anyway. I've had more than one type and it is yummy and has an interesting texture.
posted by glasseyes at 4:19 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yeah I'm confused after reading this article. I think there's several kinds of rice being discussed:
  • Carolina Gold, which was grown on wet US slave plantations and is making a commercial comeback.
  • Hill rice, which was grown by people in their own dry gardens. It is a "lost grain". It has historical connections to the African diaspora and to Thomas Jefferson's seed import.
  • This new rice re-discovery in Trinidad that we think is closely related to hill rice. It has genetic heritage from Asia (Japonica)
  • Oryza glaberrima, a rice grown in Suriname (South America) that has genetic heritage from Africa
The real fun starts when this you consider cross-breeds.
posted by Nelson at 8:59 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Recommended reading: the book Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas

Oryza glaberrima seems to have been independently domesticated in West Africa, and was highly optimized for variable and even adverse growing conditions, with a tolerance to salt, drought, flooding, pest–resistance, weed competitiveness, and the ability to grow on infertile, acid soils.

Oryza sativa was domesticated in Asia, and in addition to the famous subspecies indica (usually grown in flooded paddies, for pest & weed control), there is also dryland subspecies japonica.

The hill species found in Trinidad appears to be a landrace of japonica which somehow made it to West Africa, and thence to the Americas with shipments of enslaved human beings. Still awesome, tasty, and heirloom, but not glaberrima (or, according to another source, possibly crossbred with glaberrima).

To grotesquely summarize agricultural history: glaberrima varietals, though amazingly productive and resilient, require much more labor intensive production practices (the grains are brittle, harder to thresh or mill). Sativa varietals are much easier to use machines with any part of the process, especially dryland varieties which can (at least in North America) use lightly modified machinery already intended for other dryland grains.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:56 AM on February 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


LET'S ALL BE EXCITED ABOUT GRAIN.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:57 AM on February 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


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