to cook. When she serves samples of wild rice at food shows, she says, most people tell her they can’t believe how good it is. “They remember eating it years ago when they called it sticks and twigs because it took so long to cook, and it was so chewy and kind of hard,” she says. Another misconception to overcome, Christie says, is the name itself. Wild rice, she notes, is not technically rice, even though it looks and cooks like other types of rice. The long, slender, dark grain is the seed of an aquatic grass, just as regular rice and other cereal grains also are grasses. But white rice and wild rice are two different species, says Whitney Brim-DeForest, a University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor. Whereas white rice originated in China and parts of Africa and has been cultivated for thousands of years, wild rice is native to North America, specifically the Upper Midwest, where Native Americans have harvested the crop in shallow lakes and slow-moving streams for generations. A relatively young crop Despite its name, wild rice is not truly wild, Brim- DeForest says. But it’s not fully domesticated either, as the seeds tend to fall to the ground when the plant is mature, the way wild plants reproduce. Fully domesticated crops such as white rice or wheat that have undergone years of selective breeding retain their seed, so humans can harvest it, she adds.
When preparing her wild rice salad, above, farmer Mary Rickert cooks the kernels until they pop open to ensure a soft and tender chew.
“You could think of (wild rice) as a relatively young crop,” Brim-DeForest says. “It’s only been grown commercially in California since the 1970s. Before that, it was only grown in the Minnesota area.” Wild rice was introduced to California farmers in 1972, using seeds from Minnesota. When Jim Rickert planted his first field in 1982, it was still considered a very new crop. He says he decided to try it because he wanted to grow something that other California farmers at the time didn’t grow. Today, California represents one of two major growing regions for the grain. Its production accounts for more than half of the world’s wild rice. Minnesota remains the other top grower, with some production in Idaho, Oregon and Wisconsin, according to USA Rice Federation.
During the past 50 years, California became one of the world’s top producers of wild rice. The Golden State is also renowned for growing regular rice. It ranks behind Arkansas as the nation’s second largest rice-producing state. Most of the state’s rice comes out of the Sacramento Valley, where Calrose remains the predominant variety. It is a type of japonica rice, which is often used to make sushi because of its short, round grain and soft, sticky quality. As its name indicates, Calrose originated in California. It was developed by plant breeders at the Rice Experiment Station in Butte County, which released it to growers in 1948, according to the station. The “rose” refers to its kernel size, as it was named after an earlier medium-grain variety that was popular in the South. Having achieved world market recognition, the name stuck, even though new, improved varieties have been released through the years. That’s because Calrose by any other name would not be medium- grain rice from California. California farmers also grow 'regular rice
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