Episode 61 - 18th Century North American Rice – A History
Link to the Episode:
Episode 61 Rice has Arrived & It is Boiled
Rice comes to America at least three separate times. The first time is in the end of the 17th and the start of the 18th century, when it becomes an economic force in South Carolina - and later Georgia.
Unlike later rice, this rice is came most recently from Africa. The export rice that will build family fortunes is an Oryza sativa or Asian sourced variety, but it was a variety that was grown previously in Africa - by Africans.
But there was also Oryza glaberrima a rice of entirely African extraction. Unlike the O. sativa rice, it grows more like other cereal - simply in the dirt, instead of in rice paddies that must be transplanted, flooded and drained.
Navigational Alchemy
View the world like a compass and astrolabe only sailor. As someone who recently felt proud of herself for being able to go a single kilometer without looking at her phone to get from Point A to Point B in the twisty-turny streets of old Seville/Sevilla, the thought of riding the ocean currents and winds and getting from Madagascar to New York - a route that is approximately 10,000 miles / 16,000 km - with nothing more than a box compass and a brass and glass astrolabe seems INSANE. But people did it all the time.
How?
Developed on the Mediterranean Sea, the portolan or windrose network. It was a way to grid out bodies of water - and if you followed this heading or that heading until you bumped into land, you would (theoretically anyway) nearish to where you were trying to head.
This was always foiled by poorly understood currents (see the 16th century travels of Vaca de Cabeza) and storms that blew you out of reconning. (The entire Odyssey voyage as far as I can tell)
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| Portion of a Portolan Chart by Peitro Visconte of Genoa 1311 |
But here's what the early charts looked like - this one is of the eastern Mediterranean from the 14th century. From the recognizable boot of Italy and the cluttered archipelago of Greek and other islands at the center, you can see where this chart was most useful.
This way of charting the ocean so it could be made sense of was extended and applied to waters of the globe, and by the 18th century such charts, and meticulous log books made getting around pretty dependable. The log books or logs - that included all the helpful information about prevailing winds, currents, mysterious islands, good place to get water, passes to avoid at all cost, and safe places in a storm were recorded in these logs, and were some of the most precious Intellectual Property of their day.
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| An annotated Portolan Chart with much more information |
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Joaquim Alves Gaspar, Lisboa, Portugal - Map Author - (wikipedia user name: Alvesgaspar) |
This is a recreation of a Global Portolan Chart - the diagonals are faint - but is gives a good idea of how the world was seen by many sailors in the 17th century.
Rice - Asian Oryza sativa & African Oryza glaberrima
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| O. sativa |
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| varieties of O. glaberrima |
From their photos - its clear they are both rice... but not exactly the same rice.
Rice plants, waving in the breeze look incredibly similar - and grassy.
For a tour of some of the abandoned rice fields that grew 18th century rice, "where are they now" - check out this travel log from Alkebulon Seed Collective:
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| Take a tour of abandoned rice fields |
Pounding Rice - in West Africa or South Carolina? Georgia - 1915
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| https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/lowcountryd.htm |
Fanning Rice - Sweetgrass baskets
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| https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/grassroots/fanner.html |
Useful and Interesting Resources:
Conservation and Utilization of African Oryza Genetic Resources
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258953770_Conservation_and_utilization_of_African_Oryza_genetic_resources
Reséndez, Andrés. Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca. NY: Basic Books, 2009
O'Malley, Gregory E. Final Passages: The Intercontinental Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014
So after listening to the rice episodes I wanted to try this African rice so I found a bag of Ofada rice at the African grocery. A quick check on Google said that Ofada rice is oryza gaberrimia (sp) so I bought some. I get home and notice the bag distinctly smells like manure, the rice itself, too. I was thinking what is wrong with this rice? Back to Google to find out how to cook it and is that smell normal, what comes up but several articles explaining how to get rid of the smell. Turns out in Nigeria, Ofada rice is harvested then fermented for a week before finally drying for storage, hence the smell. I wonder if the African rice brought to the colonies was treated this way, hence ending up being not appreciated by the colonists. Also I wonder if the Trinidadian Red Rice is fermented or if that step got abandoned over the years.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, so glad I found your show! Food history is awesome!
This is so cool!
DeleteI didn't run across the fermented part. Who knows how regional this is? But it makes me. extremely happy you are out there and exploring.
FWIW - mildly fermented grains seem to be a common thing in the moist tropical regions of the world. E.g. Indian idli which is a rice & lentil cake that has a slight sourness to it. The batter is fermented overnight so the little cakes are slightly fluffy when steamed. Or Ethiopian injera bread - the teff batter is also lightly fermented.
Didn't know that about the rice, but it doesn't surprise me either.
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