Try This: Wild Rice
I know: you're going to ask me, "Who hasn't tried wild rice?"
Well, maybe you. Wild rice may well be one of the few grains indigenous to North America. But I got news for you: you may not have had the real thing.
The real thing comes from up near Minnesota and Wisconsin, maybe a little into the "U. P." of Michigan, on up toward the boundary waters, as well as spilling across the border into Canada. It's an aquatic grass, tough to harvest. In fact, it's one of the few, foraged foods that you can access fairly readily. Sure, some people forage for ramps and such this time of year. But you can't exactly buy ramps in the supermarkets most days.
To harvest wild rice, you get in a canoe with a friend and have him paddle you out to the places the "rice" grows naturally in the lakes and streams. You'll have in hand long rods called "knockers." With these, you'll bend the stalks into the canoe, often across your lap, and rap the grains off, letting them fall into the bottom of the canoe. If you do it right and are lucky in your rovings, you can eventually fill the whole canoe.
And not once, but several times. The grains ripen at various stages over the season. So you'll want to go out in that canoe several times during the harvest and bend those same grasses into the canoe to knock off more of the precious grains.
As you can see, it's not exactly a crop suitable for mechanized harvesting. So most of the wild rice you've probably eaten comes from hybridized strains designed for efficient production. These strains are more "amenable" to the thresher. And are picked all at once. If any aren't ripe, they may be ripened chemically. Thus, the package looks uniform: a black bunch of grains. With a fairly simple flavor palette, to boot.
Look back at that first picture. Ours are a gorgeous array of colors. They have a deep, sophisticated, tea-like aroma. When cooked, they become nutty and extravagant, notes of berries and red wine, fluffy, never dry, and beautifully satisfying. Ever had fried rice with real cooked wild rice? You won't forget it. Or a pilaf. Or those wild rice "burgers" in our book to get off processed food, REAL FOOD HAS CURVES? Or just a bowl of warm wild rice in the morning with butter and maple syrup.
So how can you get foraged wonder? We order ours from Scott and Patty Burns at Scenic Waters Wild Rice. He drops three, one-pound bags in a p. o. box and ships them right out. The whole thing will run you a little over $35 with shipping. Yes, expensive. But it's real food. And harvested by hand from the lakes and rivers of Minnesota. Email them at swaters-at-blackduck-dot-net. Once you try the stuff, you won't go back. Promise.
real food, real food has curves, rice, whole grains, wild rice
Reader Comments (6)
The cooked grains look so enticing! I've tried wild rice before, but maybe not this variety...I wonder how many different varieties there actually are?
Celia: Actually, several in the wild but really only one commercially. And the commercial one bears no resemblance to these grains. Very delicious stuff. A wild rice biryani? Sounds divine.
M.
Hi Mark,
That rice looks so yummy! I am putting in an order with the Burns, but wondered how you prepare it. Is it two cup liquids to one cup of rice?
Trish: Cook it East-Indian style, as you might wheat berries. Swamp it with lots of water, then cook it and drain it in a colander. It'll take 20, maybe 30 minutes. Some instructions will come on the package. Then you can make wild rice salads and such. Utterly delicious, I promise.
Mark
Excellent post! I'm a member of the Grand Portage band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and we are working hard to restore our wild rice beds. There really is no comparison between commercially produced "wild rice" and the real thing. I seriously can't remember a holiday when we didn't have Wild Rice 'hotdish.'
Amy: So right you are. We're so excited that those beds might be restored in the near future. Nothing beats wild rice!
Mark