Latest / Family Tree Food Stories / The Rice Empire Slaves Built, and a President Almost Hanged For!

Transcript

The Rice Empire Slaves Built, and a President Almost Hanged For! · Family Tree Food Stories

0:00
Nancy May: Hey everybody, it's Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely, and we
0:03
are onto a new episode once again with Family Tree Food and Stories.
0:07
If you are not a subscriber, please go to podcast.family tree food stories.com.
0:13
At the top of the page is a little button to subscribe and review, But
0:17
we hope that you're enjoying the show and that you follow us.
0:20
we drop an episode every Thursday.
0:22
And there's all sorts of goodies inside our Facebook group, which is the
0:26
Family Tree Food Stories Facebook group.
0:28
So come on over and join us there.
0:30
But this episode is all about foods that we enjoy and quietly shaped
0:35
the course of human history.
0:36
And rice sits firmly in that category of.
0:40
and it's hard to overstate its importance.
0:42
rice feeds more than half the world every single day.
0:46
Not occasionally, , but every single day.
0:50
And what strikes me is how something so small, just as little teeny
0:54
tiny, well typically white grain, at least that's the one having my
0:56
cabinet has become the foundation of.
0:59
Societies, it's just amazing.
1:02
Empires rose where rice could grow, and communities formed around
1:06
civilizations, all around rice.
1:08
Families for generations have built their lives around planting and
1:11
tending and harvesting it, and yet for most of us, it's just sitting
1:15
there on the table kind of unnoticed.
1:17
It's, I've got plastic bags of rice here and there all over the
1:20
place, and I really don't cook it as often as I probably should.
1:23
How about you, Sylvia?
1:24
Sylvia Lovely: Actually a lot.
1:25
Nancy May: You do.
1:25
? Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
1:26
We'll get to, to all of that.
1:27
I buy fancy rice too.
1:29
I spare no dollars and cents on
1:32
rice.
1:33
but you know, rice, has been carrying humanity for thousands of years.
1:37
it's not just food.
1:38
, It's a culture.
1:39
It's even a belief system to many, many parts of the world.
1:43
So today.
1:44
We're gonna talk about where Rice began, how it spread, and it does kind of spread
1:48
right in, uh, rice patties, and it became so dominant and how it shows up,
1:52
not just in history books, but in some of the most beloved dishes in the world.
1:57
If you sit down and you think about it, and if you pull the thread of rice, you
2:01
realize it's woven into almost everything.
2:04
Nancy May: You know, it's an amazing little, teeny, tiny little thing for such
2:08
a, a small grain and how important it is.
2:11
But rice takes us back about 9,000 years to the Yangzi River based in China.
2:16
As you would kind of expect, you know, rice, you get rice
2:20
with every Chinese meal.
2:21
Right?
2:22
And what I found fascinating is that it wasn't just some grand
2:27
invention, it was sort of a slow realization and people would gather
2:31
around wild rice and over time.
2:33
They began to notice certain patterns, which plants grew better, which seeds
2:38
produce more, which tastes better, and then something happened at that moment.
2:44
Someone somewhere deciding to stay put long enough to experiment,
2:48
decided to plant and instead of wander, so we're planting seeds.
2:53
Now we've gone from a wandering society to an agrarian society
2:57
and civilization cultivated or gathered around those certain foods.
3:02
And that was sort of the turning point of everything.
3:04
it wasn't corn., For some reason, I always thought it was corn, not rice.
3:08
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, I think, corn has its place, but maybe in North America
3:11
and with the indigenous culture.
3:13
But rice required ingenuity.
3:16
You know, it wasn't just planting seeds in dry soil and that, but it was early
3:20
farmers figuring out how to control water.
3:24
They flooded the fields, to create what we call, guess what.
3:27
Rice patties.
3:28
Yay.
3:29
We've seen them all in the movies, haven't we?
3:32
and that was not accidental.
3:34
That was actually engineering.
3:36
And, if you consider history, I was looking a bit into this in Japan, the.
3:41
Culture of Rice Pattying came about about 3000 years ago.
3:47
and then I even dug into the cooking of rice.
3:50
There's a whole history first, it was boiling it over, an open flame
3:54
in water, adding water to rice, to the seeds, and then steaming.
3:58
It became popular.
4:00
And that's popular today.
4:01
And today we have special pots where we can do it.
4:04
And it's supposed to.
4:05
Yield perfect, perfect rice, which by the way has its own set of controversies.
4:11
What is perfect rice?
4:12
so early communities were organized around water management systems,
4:16
that was the engineering part.
4:18
Rice wasn't just feeding people, it was shaping how people
4:21
lived together in community.
4:24
Nancy May: You know, it's interesting to think about rice patties.
4:27
I also kind of conjures up the idea, of course, I'm from New England about, um.
4:31
Cranberry bogs because they have the same kind of format.
4:35
They're flooded with water anyway.
4:38
We'll have to do
4:38
something
4:38
on cranberries as we've done that all.
4:40
But yeah.
4:41
But here's the thing that I actually love about rice.
4:44
Some of the earliest rice fields show signs of careful leveling in irrigation.
4:49
Again, sort of like the cranberry bogs in New England except China
4:52
and New England, it's kind of a far.
4:54
Distance to hike with my cow to, to plant the seeds.
4:58
Anyway, that's for another story, but that means that the farmers were
5:02
already thinking about systems and how they were growing food and the
5:07
way of their life that was all around those little patties and the fields.
5:12
You know, I, I think of rice patties.
5:13
It's, it's kind of a funny word,
5:15
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
5:16
Rice
5:16
Nancy May: I, don't think of it as a patty.
5:18
It's like a, a rice bog.
5:19
I think we'll call it.
5:21
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
5:21
Yeah.
5:21
You know, gosh, you got me thinking we should have looked up, Patty.
5:24
What does that mean?
5:25
P-A-D-D-Y.
5:27
and thank you for the cranberry bogs.
5:29
That sounds like something out of old Ireland or something.
5:32
Fog grazing up over the cranberry bog,
5:35
Nancy May: Right.
5:36
Sylvia Lovely: or the, or like in Ireland where the dead bodies.
5:39
Nancy May: Right over the moores.
5:41
Sylvia Lovely: And the, and the bogs, the cranberry bogs.
5:46
I
5:46
Nancy May: That's for another
5:47
Sylvia Lovely: Anyway, another show.
5:48
Okay, back on task, focus, focus.
5:52
but, once Rice took hold, it spread because it worked.
5:56
It produced a tremendous yield for the amount of food of land used.
6:00
And this is really important for the history of rice because it's critical
6:03
when your population is growing and lives close together, right?
6:07
and what really set rice apart is that it thrives in those water log conditions,
6:12
bogs, or patties, or whatever we wanna call it, where other crops fail.
6:16
So regions that might have been considered marginal for farming
6:18
suddenly became productive.
6:21
Pretty cool.
6:22
Nancy May: I guess we should create rice patties in Florida when they
6:25
have a hurricane in the swampy areas.
6:27
Right?
6:28
Rice
6:28
and
6:28
Sylvia Lovely: got those reeds and all that stuff, you know?
6:30
Nancy May: Yeah, rice and alligators.
6:32
We'll do that.
6:33
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
6:33
But we'll get to that in a minute about another kind of rice that really
6:36
isn't rice, but we'll talk about that.
6:38
Nancy May: Right, but the type of production actually changed everything.
6:41
So you could support larger populations in smaller areas,
6:44
which is rather interesting.
6:45
And rice, well, it fills your belly.
6:48
It does a lot.
6:49
that's part of why we see so many dense populations historically
6:53
around where Rice grew.
6:55
I wouldn't say grow up 'cause that sounds kind of strange, but
6:59
rice was growing in those regions and rice stores really well.
7:03
Like a lot of different grains.
7:04
But once it's dried, it can last for years.
7:07
And I think that's true of rice more than it is, let's say wheat grains because well
7:13
other things get in there and that kind of stability is really priceless because
7:17
it means that you can survive droughts and floods and all sorts of uncertainties
7:21
and the starch is good for you.
7:23
it's not protein, but I guess it's different kind of protein.
7:25
We'll have to look at the
7:26
Sylvia Lovely: Got a little
7:26
bit.
7:26
Yeah.
7:27
Mm-hmm.
7:27
Nancy May: But there are other layers to this that I think are only now beginning
7:32
to be appreciated as rice is becoming an incredibly efficient type of food.
7:36
there's so many different varieties,
7:39
Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
7:39
I mean, huge.
7:40
Go and look at the grocery shelves.
7:42
like I said, there's, white, there's brown, there's all of organic and,
7:46
Nancy May: and jasmine.
7:46
I'm not
7:46
exactly sure what
7:47
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, yeah, So yeah, there's all of those.
7:50
I've been reading about that too, a a little bit because that's, I think
7:53
it's slightly different flavors.
7:54
We'll cover some of those, but, it's also efficient on the plate because it
7:59
stretches meals and so you think about.
8:02
Communities, tight knit, close together, rice patties feeding large populations.
8:07
If you kind of think about it, it was food that was on a plate that
8:10
needed to have extension of the food.
8:14
and you think about rice, it kinda spreads out.
8:16
It's bigger than potatoes and it really stretches the meals so
8:20
it can feed many people when combined with other ingredients.
8:23
If you take a look, it's a lot of times it's beans, it's
8:25
lentils, rich with vegetables.
8:28
And small amounts of meat.
8:30
I do that.
8:31
Do you ever make fried rice?
8:32
I just did over the weekend.
8:33
I guess I was thinking about it.
8:34
right.
8:35
Nancy May: right.
8:36
We,
8:36
Sylvia Lovely: doing that.
8:37
Nancy May: we used to take old rice, especially if it's old and sitting
8:40
in the refrigerator and just mix it with all sorts of stuff that
8:42
was left over in the refrigerator.
8:45
I kind of sort of call it, it wasn't fried rice, I guess it was fried rice, but
8:47
we just call it the refrigerator dumped dinner, which is not very appetizing.
8:52
But anyway, I think rice also gets misunderstood so many ways today
8:57
because we think of it as carbs.
8:58
I'm on a low carb diet right now.
9:00
It's like no carbs, no sugar, trying to avoid all of that.
9:03
So I haven't been eating rice,
9:05
Sylvia Lovely: I'm gonna talk you into it.
9:07
Nancy May: So, but historically, rice wasn't eaten in isolation.
9:10
It's a community thing, which is what we're
9:12
about here.
9:13
It's family tree, food and stories.
9:14
People gathered it around
9:16
rice
9:18
and
9:18
you
9:18
Sylvia Lovely: tacos all, yeah.
9:20
Think about all of that stuff that, that springs from, rice.
9:24
so it's not about being cheap food, although It is.
9:27
it spreads very much, you can make a lot with, just a little bit.
9:32
you can put like a cup of rice in and you get a mountain of cooked rice
9:36
in your, in from your boiled water.
9:39
Rice was about being smart.
9:41
It allowed families and communities to create meals that were filling,
9:44
balanced and sustainable, even when the resources were limited.
9:49
And I thought I'd mention here, nutrition, because everybody's
9:52
into protein and fiber, right?
9:54
That's the big deal.
9:55
It does not complete your protein profile.
9:59
It has some protein, but that's not why you would do rice by itself.
10:04
you would pair it and notice how many foods are paired with, rice,
10:08
with lentils or rice and beans,
10:12
and you think
10:12
about.
10:13
Yeah, it ha it creates the perfect protein profile and I think there's a
10:17
reason for that, that maybe we don't have time to go into, but it's like street
10:21
food or food that fed a lot of people.
10:24
If you had a large family, you would do a lot of those kinds of rice and beans and
10:29
all of that, and then it has more fiber.
10:32
I was seen about the wars between white potatoes and rice, which is kind of
10:36
fun to read a battle war, you know,
10:38
Nancy May: between
10:39
the vegetables and the grains.
10:41
Sylvia Lovely: So, you know, they fight each other over, over
10:43
prominence and you know, rice has more fiber than white potatoes.
10:48
It's gluten-free.
10:49
And some of them, like brown rice, has higher protein than the lowly potatoes.
10:54
So you see where I'm coming down on this.
10:56
You know, I like, I like potatoes just fine, but this rice thing, and they
11:01
have that wonderful, nutty flavor.
11:03
Nancy May: Yeah, rice, I, I was a rice fanatic for a long time,
11:06
and it's been a long while since I've had rice, but I guess.
11:08
Could call it the smart food that's out there.
11:11
They even pop a rice, but you, talking about rice and beans.
11:14
I never even thought about it, but there's a big Hispanic population
11:18
where we are, and I see signs on outside of restaurant rice and beans.
11:23
And our, lead aid that I relied on for everything with taking care
11:27
of mom and dad, Millie, she made a rice and bean dish that she made
11:32
for me once, and it, oh my God.
11:34
I never thought about putting rice and beans.
11:36
I thought it'd be tasteless.
11:37
It was good.
11:38
It was really good.
11:40
Sylvia Lovely: it creates the perfect protein profile.
11:43
And I'll give you another reason why I like it.
11:46
I am not a big meat eater, and yet meat, as we well know,
11:49
has the complete proteins.
11:51
And right now I'm trying to adjust my diet, but I don't want to eat as much.
11:55
So if you combine.
11:57
beans and rice, you get a complete protein profile and you don't have to
12:02
eat as much, although, like I'll bring leftovers home from the restaurant.
12:05
Got accidentally served a whole pork chop the other night.
12:07
Well, Bernie and I never eat a whole pork chop each, so brought it home and we
12:12
actually got two of them by accident.
12:14
I won't explain
12:15
why it's crazy, big, nice yuy ones.
12:18
So I chopped it up and I made my fried rice with pork, which is
12:21
also a, a good way to eat rice.
12:23
So.
12:24
Anyway, there's an interesting little factoid.
12:26
Nancy May: Yeah.
12:26
Rice and butter just slab.
12:28
Oh gosh.
12:29
We're not even gonna go there.
12:30
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
12:31
Nancy May: But we have a lot of stories to go over because there's
12:34
some really interesting things.
12:35
About rice and the history of rice and actually how it got to the states.
12:39
But we're gonna take just a quick little break before we get there,
12:42
because I'm still a little curious here on the rice and beans things.
12:46
We will, we'll have to talk during the break.
12:48
You'll fill in on that, but we'll be right back.
12:58
So Sylvia, we are bad talking about rice.
13:01
And rice arrived in the United States, or Rice arrived in American
13:05
South in the late 16 hundreds.
13:08
But there's a deeper story that's kind of interesting about that.
13:11
The success of rice and cultivation in places like South Carolina and Georgia.
13:16
Accidental, the slaves that came over through Africa or were
13:20
brought over through Africa.
13:21
Just make that proper, I mean, I don't know how to describe that because you
13:25
know, that was such a time that.
13:26
I find it very hard to fathom.
13:28
But anyway, , the, enslaved Africans brought with them a highly sophisticated
13:33
knowledge of rice farming, which is interesting because I never even
13:37
thought , that even that happened And how to manage the water and build
13:41
irrigation systems and then also process the grain properly grinding
13:46
in whatever else they wanted to do.
13:47
We have rice flour in our kitchen, and you know what, I use rice flour for.
13:52
Sylvia Lovely: What?
13:52
Nancy May: Well, I use it for making my sourdough, not that you put it into
13:55
the bread, but when you have a bread dough, and you need to, knead it on
14:01
on your countertop.
14:02
If you put flour down, it sticks.
14:05
If you put rice flour down, it doesn't stick because it doesn't
14:09
have, it doesn't have the gluten.
14:11
Is that interesting?
14:12
Sylvia Lovely: Sure.
14:14
I love that.
14:15
Wow.
14:16
and rice wasn't just from Asia, it was also independently cultivated in Africa.
14:20
Who knew?
14:21
. There are even records of traitors targeting regions known as the rice
14:26
coast because of that expertise or teeth.
14:28
Nancy May: I never thought about the rice coast, honestly, till we started
14:31
researching this and digging into like, I'm I'm gonna look at a pot of cooked
14:35
rice a little different next time.
14:37
, . That knowledge made rice one of the most profitable crops in America.
14:42
And again, it's something that I just like blows my mind.
14:45
entire economies were built on it.
14:48
So you think of Carolina Rice and one of the bigger varieties is Carolina
14:52
Gold Rice, that long grains, slightly nutty kind of rice that is now super
14:58
prized and almost disappearing.
15:01
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, but it, people may order it and we have it on
15:04
the, , menu at our restaurant,
15:05
Nancy May: it's specifically says
15:07
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, it's Carolina Gold.
15:09
It's so good.
15:10
Nancy May: So you
15:11
don't cheap out for your customers.
15:12
I like that.
15:13
But then here, here's, here's the story.
15:15
I absolutely love this story.
15:17
I would've liked to have known Thomas Jefferson, he was a very interesting
15:20
fellow, he was a diplomat and one of our founding fathers, and he was
15:26
an obsessed foodie, my kind of guy.
15:29
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
15:29
Nancy May: And he was also a rice smuggler.
15:32
Can you imagine that?
15:33
Sylvia Lovely: What in the world's that.
15:35
Nancy May: Well, let me tell you the story.
15:37
He was living in France as the American Ambassador to France from the United
15:42
States, obviously, and became convinced that these Italian type of rice from.
15:47
Piemonte I hope that's the correct pronunciation.
15:51
But Piemonte Rice was superior to what we had in the American
15:55
Farms where we were growing here.
15:57
So in 1787, he traveled to Northern Italy and he stuffed his pockets with his
16:03
rice, kind of a contraband kind of way.
16:05
I don't think he would've made it across the lines in like
16:09
JFK, he just wouldn't make it
16:11
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, the dogs wouldn't have, dogs wouldn't have
16:13
sniffed that one out, would they?
16:15
Nancy May: No, not unless it's stuffed with some other sign of weed, but,
16:18
Sylvia Lovely: But, but how, what was the, penalty for that?
16:21
What was the penalty?
16:22
Nancy May: apparently if you were smuggling out of Italian
16:25
areas, death was a penalty.
16:27
Italian cities and states did not mess around.
16:30
He actually risked execution.
16:32
For handful of lowly rice
16:35
Sylvia Lovely: oh man.
16:36
Nancy May: lowly rice,
16:37
Sylvia Lovely: Oh, Thomas,
16:38
that's the most patriotic.
16:39
That brings tears to my eyes.
16:40
The most patriotic thing I've heard, or the most ridiculous.
16:45
Nancy May: He was a politician, so we won't go there,
16:47
Sylvia Lovely: Okay.
16:47
We won't go there.
16:49
Nancy May: but maybe he was a little bit of both.
16:51
So both a patriotic and a little bit of a smuggler.
16:54
Turns out the Italian rice wasn't even better.
16:57
It was just cheaper to ship.
16:59
So he was a stingy rice smuggler,
17:02
Sylvia Lovely: Ah,
17:03
Nancy May: but.
17:04
Still, the man had pockets and he risked his life.
17:07
I gotta tell you, anybody who's that crazy, that's, you gotta really
17:13
like rice in order to do that.
17:15
Especially knowing
17:15
the consequences.
17:16
Right.
17:17
Sylvia Lovely: he was wealthy and he had to travel and all that kind of stuff.
17:20
Nancy May: He died pennyless though.
17:21
Sylvia Lovely: He probably thought, yeah, well yeah, but he had it and he spent it.
17:25
Well, he could, didn't he?
17:26
But, so anyway, I'm sticking with Carolina Gold.
17:29
It nearly vanished after the Civil War because that was a bit of a. A jolt,
17:34
, But it's revived today and . You can mail order it, you can get it in the stores
17:38
and Whole Foods and places like that.
17:40
It's good.
17:40
It's really, really tasty.
17:42
Nancy May: I wonder what the difference between Carolyn and
17:44
Rice and like Uncle Ben's, does he even have Uncle Ben's anymore in
17:47
Sylvia Lovely: You know, I don't do that anymore and I order, I, I get from
17:50
Whole Foods, really high-end rice.
17:53
I can't remember the brand now, but it comes in all kinds of
17:55
things, all kinds of versions.
17:57
Balsam, what, what am I trying to say?
17:59
Not balsamic.
18:00
Um, ah.
18:01
Nancy May: Ja, Jasmine
18:02
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, you basmati rice.
18:04
Yeah.
18:04
And I don't, have a super taster in my mouth, but I
18:08
do know that rice tastes good
18:10
and I get that.
18:12
Yeah.
18:12
Yeah.
18:13
So anyway, but I, you know, really tasty and the Carolina gold is really tasty.
18:17
But, , the other thing we should talk about is the spiritual meaning of rice.
18:22
that's universal in all the foods we talk about,
18:24
Nancy May: Throwing it at weddings that
18:25
they don't do anymore.
18:26
So the birds right.
18:27
Sylvia Lovely: Symbolic.
18:28
Yeah.
18:28
Many cultures, it represents life, fertility, thus the throwing
18:32
of the rice, uh, prosperity.
18:34
In Japan, it's sacred.
18:35
It's used in rituals, offerings.
18:37
It's tied to whole belief systems.
18:40
Nancy May: Do you know what kind of belief systems it's tied to?
18:42
I guess it's like prosperity and all that sort of good luck,
18:45
mobo
18:46
Sylvia Lovely: the, Japanese probably do ritual about as well as anything.
18:48
In fact, I've been reading a lot about ritual and foods are very
18:52
frequently used in rituals and the stuff I'm reading is about grief and
18:56
recovery from grief, of a loved one,
18:59
Nancy May: You always bring food, right?
19:01
Sylvia Lovely: and it always involves food.
19:02
, It's like, I think fundamentally food is the one thing we all do and have to have
19:08
to survive, and , as long as we're walking on earth and aren't six foot under,
19:14
then food is just symbolic of life.
19:17
Nancy May: Comfort, I would think.
19:19
In India, it marks all sorts of life's milestones, births,
19:22
marriages, deaths, as you mentioned.
19:24
It becomes part of, again, this ritual language of comfort and, a
19:29
hot bowl of rice in your hands.
19:31
It's kinda like a hot cup of tea.
19:33
I don't know, it sort of feels like, mom.
19:34
mom
19:34
Sylvia Lovely: and, and think about it, this isn't necessarily
19:37
about rice, but it's about ritual.
19:39
following a funeral, there's always a big spread of food
19:43
and comfort that food brings.
19:44
So some of these dishes because they're so ancient, we are a young country.
19:49
We've adopted some of that stuff.
19:51
Now we have the indigenous population that we have also, gotten.
19:55
. A lot of knowledge from, but , food is, part of all of that.
19:58
So it's across cultures, about life.
20:00
Continuing on until you pass to another form of life is what most
20:05
religions and rituals are all about.
20:07
And then you celebrate people in the afterlife
20:09
Nancy May: I think even the Egyptians, when they bury their pharaohs and
20:13
their queens they used to build the pyramids with food too, didn't they?
20:18
Yeah.
20:18
But there are all sorts of varieties of, rice, which just blows my mind
20:23
because it's not just the white and the brown that you see on the shelves.
20:26
Like you mentioned, I was in a Sprouts the other day and there was two
20:31
shelves of different kinds of rice.
20:32
I had
20:33
no idea that,
20:35
Sylvia Lovely: people are gravitating to rice.
20:36
Nancy May: Tens of thousands of varieties of rice, but we're not even gonna be
20:40
calling some of them actually a rice.
20:42
Minnesota Wild Rice, for example, is not all rice at all.
20:45
It's actually a, an aquatic grass and say that three times fast.
20:50
Right.
20:52
Traditionally harvested by Native American tribes like the ani is that how you
20:57
pronounce it?
20:57
Sylvia Lovely: we, oh, oh.
20:59
Obi.
21:00
Obi.
21:00
Uh, I don't know if the J is pronounced Ojibwe.
21:03
I'll have to ask my son.
21:05
my son.
21:05
lives in Duluth, Minnesota,
21:06
which
21:07
is why I know a lot.
21:07
Nancy May: Minnesota girl,
21:08
Sylvia Lovely: I love Minnesota.
21:10
, I would move there, but my husband would divorce me 'cause it's cold up
21:13
there and he doesn't wanna ever go cold.
21:15
But I love it.
21:16
And you can go to any gas station up there and you can buy wild rice by the pound.
21:22
Nancy May: I think that's weird.
21:23
Sylvia Lovely: And it is a grass, but it looks just like rice.
21:27
and they called it ? Manoomin.
21:29
Meaning good berry and it's harvested from the canoe, which , gently, the
21:33
berries are knocked into the boat.
21:35
And so it's an interesting thing I've bought wild rice, but I tell
21:39
you the best dish in the world.
21:41
Okay, you ready?
21:42
Wild rice burgers.
21:44
They serve them in, every restaurant in Minnesota.
21:47
Nothing here.
21:48
We don't get 'em here, but they're just so tasty and it's that nutty, nutty flavor.
21:54
It's just wonderful.
21:55
I love, wild rice burgers.
21:56
Tried to replicate it here, but no one's ever really done a
21:59
Nancy May: I say ya.
22:00
I think you know, it says all the YA thing or something that goes on in Minnesota.
22:03
All the like strange language
22:05
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
22:06
Nancy May: Remember that movie Fargo?
22:07
Sylvia Lovely: Yes.
22:08
Oh yeah.
22:08
Oh yeah.
22:09
Well, it's a different kind of place, but my son loves it.
22:12
Nancy May: Well, when you
22:13
gotta bundle up in 6 trillion different
22:15
layers.
22:16
Yeah, you gotta.
22:17
Sylvia Lovely: up there.
22:17
Area
22:18
Nancy May: It is snowing in July probably.
22:20
Anyway, saffron is also associated with rice dishes.
22:24
It's not that Saffron's, not a rice either, but saffron is those, little
22:28
thistle one, the little inner things of,
22:31
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
22:32
Nancy May: crocus and it's a specific,
22:37
Sylvia Lovely: Hey,
22:38
Nancy May: we're gonna leave that blooper in,
22:40
Sylvia Lovely: it's confession time.
22:41
Confession time.
22:42
Nancy May: Confession time
22:43
Sylvia Lovely: 'cause I researched saffron 'cause I thought it was rice.
22:48
Nancy May: You did.
22:49
Sylvia Lovely: I did.
22:49
I swear I did.
22:50
Okay.
22:51
I told you.
22:51
Okay.
22:52
So yeah, so, it's from a flower, so, okay, I did.
22:56
Confession.
22:57
But they do have rice that can be infused with saffron.
23:00
but it sound like that, you know, think about it.
23:02
Nancy May: Does it
23:03
make it big?
23:03
Sylvia Lovely: name for rice?
23:04
Nancy May: Yeah, well, saffron is really super expensive and there's
23:08
some other stuff that Bob has that just makes it look like saffron.
23:11
When you put it, makes it orangey, I don't know if Saffron
23:14
really makes a difference, that much of a difference in a taste.
23:18
My palate's not that strong, so I'm gonna have to flunk chef school.
23:21
But still, then there's brown rice versus white, white rice, and, , one
23:26
retains the nutrients because it stores longer and it doesn't, it doesn't.
23:30
Degrade over time, although, have you ever noticed that in a bag of rice, if
23:35
it sits in your cabinet for a long, long time, well, yours probably don't sit
23:39
there that long, that you get like a powdery substance almost inside the bag.
23:44
Sylvia Lovely: No, I've never let it happen because I put mine in the freezer.
23:48
I just dip out the stuff I need.
23:50
'cause I mean, we're just two people and we eat at the restaurant every night.
23:54
So it's only like lunch or Sunday that we'll eat at home and there
23:58
just isn't enough, you know?
23:59
So, and I can't use it.
24:01
'cause you buy it in a giant package and you make it and
24:04
it creates, like huge amount.
24:06
It's like oatmeal, , you make one cup and four cups of water
24:10
and you get like this entire
24:11
thing so, yeah.
24:13
So.
24:13
Brown typically is more nutrient, rich.
24:17
but white rice is also enriched with a lot of the B vitamins too,
24:21
which, is pretty good stuff.
24:23
Nancy May: But then there's also global dishes with rice.
24:26
So rice really is truly, I Universal food, which is very interesting that
24:32
it has spanned so many countries and been able to go from wet rice patties
24:36
in the, Asian countries over here.
24:39
But rice becomes whatever you kind of need it to be, I guess, from Paella.
24:43
, Oh my God, I've made Paella . I haven't done it very well.
24:46
I always burn the bottom of the pan because you, it's long, big, flat
24:50
pan and there's not a lot of water, but it takes a while to cook down.
24:53
So I haven't quite gotten that,
24:54
Sylvia Lovely: You wanna hear a funny story We serve it with
24:56
certain dishes and our bartender years ago, very unsophisticated,
25:01
but she was a great bartender.
25:03
so here's what she said.
25:04
She said, would you like to have some placenta with that meal?
25:09
Nancy May: Placenta.
25:10
Ew.
25:11
No, thank
25:11
you
25:12
Sylvia Lovely: It was legendary.
25:13
Nancy May: Yeah.
25:13
Yeah.
25:14
No.
25:14
Sylvia Lovely: Anyway, just a little aside, okay?
25:16
Nancy May: Then risotto in Italy and Jambalaya , I had the best risotto.
25:21
Oh my god.
25:22
Real quick story.
25:23
So I was in New York this past fall doing a a mastermind group for an organization,
25:28
and I met my friend Diane, who I've known since, literally since kindergarten.
25:33
And we went to this little French restaurant and they had.
25:36
Wild smoked mushroom risotto.
25:38
Now, I am not a big risotto fan, but that sounded so good.
25:43
I had to try It It was amazing.
25:46
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
25:47
Nancy May: I haven't had a dish that good in a long time.
25:49
So anytime I have a dish like that, I usually ask like, can the chef gimme
25:53
some idea how to do, well, I guess the chef must have been French because the
25:57
waiter went back and he said, yeah, just look at the menu and take a picture.
26:02
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah,
26:02
sounds like it.
26:04
How does Rice turn into risotto?
26:05
Do you know the answer to that?
26:07
Nancy May: I, I always thought risotto was a pasta, but I'm wrong.
26:12
Sylvia Lovely: know
26:12
that's
26:13
interesting, isn't it?
26:14
Nancy May: All I know is that it takes a lot of
26:15
' water and it's a lot of stirring, and it's creamy, but it's creamy because
26:19
it has cheese and other stuff in it.
26:20
So
26:21
Sylvia Lovely: And that's true too.
26:22
'cause I like Parmesan risotto.
26:23
Yeah.
26:23
Nancy May: it takes a long time to cook.
26:25
I'll have to, I'll have to try it and report back.
26:28
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
26:28
Okay.
26:29
and then of course there's Hop and John in the south.
26:32
hop and John is so good and it's just basically rice and beans,
26:36
but a lot of vegetables, peppers,
26:39
onions, all of those good things are in Hop and John, but any kind
26:43
of health food store.
26:44
Restaurant in this part of the country will have Hop and John on their menu.
26:48
So it's, it's a good dish.
26:49
, And I don't know how to print it.
26:50
Bur Burani and India Wild Rice soups and burgers in Minnesota.
26:55
Nancy May: Wild rice soup.
26:56
Yes.
26:56
Very good.
26:57
And every dish tells a story, not just about flavor, but about adaptation
27:01
from China to Italy to France.
27:06
And they're not telling you what the menu or the recipe is
27:10
Sylvia Lovely: I know.
27:10
Nancy May: to, to Minnesota, to Kentucky.
27:14
I don't think of rice being a big deal out in California, but maybe they have.
27:17
Well, they're short on water, so probably not,
27:20
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
27:21
Nancy May: he never knows.
27:21
Sylvia Lovely: They just eat fresh food.
27:23
Right?
27:23
Fruit and
27:23
salads.
27:24
That's how they stay paper thin, right?
27:27
Nancy May: I met
27:28
some plump Californians, so,
27:30
Sylvia Lovely: Uh, anyway, rice absorbs culture.
27:32
That's all we know as much as it absorbs flavor and it does do that.
27:37
So when you step back, rice connects us across time and across place.
27:41
Nancy May: and generations right.
27:43
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
27:44
Nancy May: From ancient China to West Africa to yeah.
27:47
Carolina Gold, to that wild rice and well, like we said, even Minnesota
27:52
darling, it's just misunderstood, but it's never been replaced,
27:59
which is really just amazing that rice has never been forgotten.
28:04
It seems to be a
28:05
new health food.
28:06
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, it's more popular than ever.
28:08
cause it,
28:09
Nancy May: cereal
28:10
Sylvia Lovely: yeah.
28:10
Nancy May: it to be
28:10
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, that's right.
28:11
Rice puffs or
28:12
Nancy May: Yeah.
28:13
Sylvia Lovely: You know, what are Rice Krispies?
28:15
Nancy May: Rice Krispies.
28:16
Yeah.
28:17
I used
28:17
Sylvia Lovely: yay.
28:18
Nancy May: right?
28:18
Sylvia Lovely: I love 'em.
28:19
And Rice Krispy bars.
28:21
Don't forget those.
28:22
there's something really quite extraordinary.
28:25
Nancy May: it makes enough possible and you can never go hungry with rice,
28:29
so.
28:30
Sylvia Lovely: it's killing.
28:31
Nancy May: Right.
28:31
There's so many stories about rice and the things that we do around rice,
28:34
and I think the big thing ultimately is that it brings us together in
28:38
community, which is what family tree, food and stories is all about.
28:41
Because yes, every meal has a story and every story is a feast, as we say, but
28:46
the stories that you tell over your table, your dinner table, or maybe even
28:51
over your puffed rice breakfast cereal is something that we hope you cherish
28:55
and share for generations to come.
28:57
For now, we'll dish up a pot of rice or cook up a pot of rice, and we'll
29:02
see you and we'll hear you next time.
29:04
Take care.
29:05
Be
29:05
well
29:05
and chill.
29:06
Sylvia Lovely: goodbye.