Keeping it Real

Saucyman, Wild Rice - people always say it’s not a real-rice. It looks like rice, it looks real, what can you tell me ?

Wild Rice, or Zizania palustris, is a distant cousin to the tropical Oryza grass – this is the plant people call real-rice, the family of rice with 10,000 or so varieties, the crop cultivated in 110 countries, whose grains are a staple food for about half the world’s population.

Saucyman hates passing judgment of what is authentic and what is spurious but in the case of Wild Rice; it is a grass like real-rice, is genetically related, like its white counterpart - it is harvested as food - so it is fair to say it is real.

Wild Rice was a pre-columbian crop in North America, the aquatic grass can still be found growing in New Jersey, Florida, Texas and isolated parts of the St. Lawrence watershed but the mother lode, specifically Northern Wild Rice, is found the Great Lakes region in the US and on the Canada side the plant grows in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (1).

Harvesting Wild Rice is labor intensive. For about the first 10 to 12 thousand years of cultivation, the grass was harvested by paddling canoes into waterways where the top of 9-foot tall plant would be bent over the canoe - the rice was collected by raking grains from the stalk into the bottom of the canoe. In the last 40 years, cultivation has shifted to artificial paddies that are drained prior to harvest so the rice can be reaped mechanically.

After the Wild Rice is gathered, it goes through a multi-stage process to prepare it for storage. First, the kernels are matured – a process very similar to fermenting tea leaves – the rice is piled on the floor or ground where microbial growth on the surface of the grain develops flavor and weakens the tough outer husk. Next, the kernels are parched over a fire to reduce the 40% moisture content – making the rice ready for storage and imbuing the grains with a smoky, nutty flavor. Finally, the rice is husked, removing a papery envelope that surrounded the grain leaving the familiar brown, brown-green, needle shaped kernel.

Even in the kitchen Wild Rice takes a little more work - needing 75% more liquid as real-rice and taking twice as long to cook as its cousin. Because of its rather intense flavor, expense and long preparation time wild rice is often partially cooked and mixed with real-rice. The never, ever will be appropriate, cringe inducing brand, Uncle Ben’s, sells converted wild rice/real-rice pilaf that cooks in 8-10 minutes.

As tempting as the ease of prepackaged rice pilaf is, do not reach for Uncle Ben’s, the more appropriate Minnesota-based Uncle Sven’s or any other prepackaged wild rice mixes - cooking wild rice is a total back burner project - And there are better things to mix wild rice with than real-rice.

3 ½ cups water or stock
Healthy pinch of Salt
1 cup wild rice

Bring liquid to boil, add salt, stir in rice, reduce heat to medium, cover and do not look for 40 minutes. Don’t look. After 40 minutes if the rice is still nutty, add a ½ cup of liquid cover for an additional 10 minutes before removing from heat. It is done.

Mushrooms, particularly wild mushrooms, go real well with wild rice – About 8-12 oz of wild mushrooms – any mix of crimini, portabello, shiitake, chanterelles, oyster or really any mushroom that isn’t white - cooked in two tablespoons of butter then mixed with wild rice makes for a tasty dish. ½ cup cranberries cooked in a cup of white wine (the sweeter the better) for 20 minutes then added to cooked wild rice is good, especially when diced ripe pears and a tablespoon of pear brandy are tossed in to the mix. Sautéed onions are good match to wild rice, but leeks or scallions are better. Mixing Wild Rice with smoked salmon is a good option for the turkey averse. Mixing the wild rice with green beans, apples or baked squash make for better tasting sides then your standard straight from the box wild rice pilaf.

(1) Along with real-rice, a strain of Wild Rice can be found growing in China, but grains take a back seat to both the plant’s leaves, which are used as dumpling wrappers and the plant’s young shoots, which apparently taste like asparagus.