Short Essay #4 "Rice"

                My most recent meal is a Chipotle burrito.  In this burrito there were a lot of different ingredients.  There were rice, beans, steak, lettuce, salsa, and cheese.  Of these ingredients there is one major ingredient that has been a main staple of many people’s diets.  This ingredient is rice.  It can be traced as far back as 2500 B.C. (Rost, Thomas)  Many countries use rice as a major component is most meals.  I am intrigued by this ingredient because it is so common in every culture and it is present in most meals. 

                Rice is found in many different cultures because its seeds are incredibly versatile and durable.  This many it easy to be transported great distances and traded to new cultures.  Rice originated in china. (Kiple, Kenneth F. and Kriemhild C. Ornelas)    From china it made its way to Sri Lanka and India.  There it was traded to areas in the Mediterranean.  Once there it was spread throughout Europe and North Africa.  Rice was brought to North America from England and to South America by Spain and Portugal.  (Rost, Thomas)

                Rice found its way to North America by accident.  The story goes that in 1685 a storm battered ship was forced to make port at the Charleston harbor.  The colonists helped to repair the ship and as a gift of thanks the captain gave the colonists rice seeds.  There were incredibly fertile marshlands close to the colony so growing the rice was relatively easy.  In just 15 years rice became a major crop for the colonists and in one year 300 tons of rice was grown.  It was grown on such a large scale that there were not enough trading ships to send all of the rice back to England.  Just 26 years after the year that 300 tons of rice was grown, Charleston was exporting 4500 tons of rice annually.  (Ehler, James)

                Initially Rice was grown by throwing the seeds into wetlands.  The early Chinese civilizations that did this eventually began to build small berms to keep the water in and contain the fields.  Harvesting the crop is very labor intensive.  It would be common for entire communities to help with the harvest.  It became easier to plant and harvest rice once tools and advanced machines were developed.  In modern day America planes are used to spread the seeds over the targets fields.  With tractors and pumps it is easier for farmers to create ideal irrigation conditions for the seeds to grow.  Only once the tools evolved enough were people able to farm rice without needing a massive amount of labor.   (Kiple, Kenneth F. and Kriemhild C. Ornelas)

                I have learned a lot about rice from doing research and writing this paper.  The most surprising thing that I was able to learn was the difficulty of harvesting rice.  For example, “Even with ox and mule-drawn equipment. . . .rice ‘farms’ or plantations of only a few hundred acres required from 100 to 300 laborers.”  (Ehler, James)  I had always thought that because of the abundance and the low cost of rice that it was easy to harvest.  I was also surprised to learn that rice was brought to America unintentionally.  I would have guessed that rice was brought to the colonies intentionally as a crop that they would try to grow to survive.  Instead it was because a ship needed repairs and the captain thanked the colonists by giving them rice seeds.  I also found the path that rice took to spread around the world was interesting.  I wasn’t that surprised that it started in the east and made its way to the west, but it was interesting to have it mapped out. 

                This knowledge doesn’t affect how I will treat my consumption of rice.  Because plantation and cultivation of rice has been mechanized there is no need to respect rice over other plants.  If rice was still hand cultivated then I would have much more respect for rice.  I would cherish meals that contain rice as much as meals that contain other difficult foods and spices to grow.  An example of something that I do cherish a lot is anything with saffron.  This is a difficult spice to obtain and when I eat dishes I try to savor the flavor much more.  This would make paella, a saffron rice based dish, one of my most respected and savored dishes. 

               

Works Cited

Rost, Thomas. "Rice: History." Rice: History. 1997. Web. 06 May 2012. http://www-plb.ucdavis.edu/labs/rost/Rice/introduction/intro.html

Ehler, James. "RICE: The History of Rice in the U.S." Rice History, Development & Methods. USA Rice Federation. Web. 06 May 2012. <http://www.foodreference.com/html/art-rice-history.html>.

Kiple, Kenneth F., and Kriemhild C. Ornelas. "The Cambridge World History of Food- Rice." The Cambridge World History of Food- Rice. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/rice.htm>.