Rice is the most popular grain in
the world, even more than wheat. It is consumed by
most of Asia as the main staple. It is used as a side
dish in Europe, Africa and America.
Rice is a plant whose stem varies
between 2 to 10 feet in length. In the wild, it grows
in tanks, ditches and rivers; but it is cultivated
in farmlands where water is kept enclosed within bunds.
It grows in the water body where the lower part of
the stem floats or is prostrate and the upper part
is erect. It is indigenous to India and also to China.
There are some 40,000 varieties of
rice though all of them are from the same botanical
species: oryza sativa. The most common classification
is by the length of the grain: Long Grain, Medium
Grain and Short Grain.
Long-grain rice,
as the name suggests, is long and slender. The grains
stay separate and fluffy after cooking. This is the
best suited for rice served as a side dish, or as
a bed for sauces.
Medium-grain rice
is plumper and the grain is shorter. It is considered
good for paella and risotto.
Short-grain rice
is almost round, with moist grains that stick together
giving it a gooey appearance when cooked.
The terms "Indica" and
"Japonica" could be taken to mean "long
grain and non-sticky" and "short grain and
sticky" respectively and represent the two ends
of the spectrum. The westerners, either in America
or in Europe including UK, find long grain rice suitable
for their style of cooking. Within these broad categories
there are innumerable varieties and we would deal
with some of them in this article.
The western cook books usually mean
American long-grain rice when they refer to long-grain
rice. Carolina Rice is considered the best among the
American Long Grain. Intriguingly, rice is no longer
grown in Carolina. The name indicates to a past when
the British gentry wanted to savour rice but found
it rare and expensive. Some British merchants dealing
in Patna Rice took the grain from India to Carolina
which was then a British colony and grew it there.
They made a rather decent job of it. To this day,
the best American rice is called Carolina rice though
its cultivation was ceased there at the end of the
American Civil War. Most of American long grain in
now grown in Arkansas, California, Texas or Argentina
and Brazil in South America.
Westerners erroneously do not differentiate
between Carolina Rice and Patna Rice and use the term
interchangeably. Please see website :
http://www.harvestfields.ca/CookBooks/001/04/27.htm
American long-grain (which includes
Carolina rice) has a somewhat bland flavour. The popularity
could be due to the price and availability since long
grain from India is rather rare and expensive. The
situation could be considered analogous to Wine. While
Wine from Argentina is quite good, it is not quite
the same as the wine from France.
The craving for genuine long grained
rice with decent flavour that a westerner feels can
be gauged from the question put up by an expatriate
British in Thailand:
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=44562
Observe the surprise of a gourmet
when he finds the rice he is served is authentic Patna
“It's really patna!"
http://www.montrealfood.com/restos/bistroavenue.html
Patna rice originally comes from
Bihar in the Gangetic plains in India. It has a robust,
long and narrow, opaque grain that keeps its shape
well for curries. It has a mild fragrance and has
been grown for millennia. Patna rice is considered
the best for use with curries. (http://funkymunky.co.za/currytips.html)
Patna is the capital of the State
of Bihar in India and the rice takes its name from
the city. The earliest written reference to the rice
grown near Patna is in the Buddhist literature at
the time of Gautam Buddha himself. Rice gruel is referred
to as offerings to Lord Buddha when he went around
asking for daily alms. Reference can also be found
about varieties of rice being superior and inferior
quality.
Hiuen Tsang is a Chinese traveller
who travelled to India in the seventh century AD.
He spent considerable time at Nalanda near Patna,
then a university of great repute and the most renowned
centre of Buddhist learning. He was served a strain
of Patna rice called Mahasali rice. He describes it
as “grain was as large as a bean, and when cooked,
was aromatic, and shining like no other rice”
Source : http://www.indiasite.com/bihar/nalanda.html
Another reference to the rice of
Patna is in Ain –I-Akbari written by Abul Fazal,
the court historian of Mughal king Akbar. He collected
various strains of rice grown around Patna and reported
that even if one grain of each strain was taken, it
would fill a large vase.
Europeans took to the rice of the
region in a big way in the seventeenth century. Fortunes
of several merchants were built by dealing in Patna
rice. The most celebrated is the case of William Fullarton
of Skeldon UK. Having made his fortune by dealing
in Patna Rice, he returned to the UK. He started a
coal mining business in Scotland. He felt so obligated
to Patna that he named the hamlet he built for his
miners as Patna. To this day, this town in East Ayrshire,
Scotland is called Patna.
Source: http://www.east-ayrshire.gov.uk/comser/my%20area/patna.asp
Since at one time, most of the rice
sold in Europe came from this region, Patna Rice is
also sometimes loosely used to mean any long grain
aromatic rice.
Basmati rice, another Indian export,
is a close relative of Patna Rice, has a nutty taste
and goes well with many Indian and Middle Eastern
dishes. Basmati need not be grown in the Patna region.
Even rice grown in Pakistan is sometime referred to
as Basmati. This variety of rice has a stronger aroma.
Authentic “Patna” is
of course the king of rice. It is described as “The
most expensive long-grained Indian rice, aged for
two years to enhance its fragrance and texture. Worth
the extra money.”
Source: http://gourmetclub.signonsandiego.com/20030129-9999-rice.html
Botanical.com describes Carolina
and Patna rice as “the most esteemed in England
and the United States. The grain of the first is round
and flat, and boils soft for puddings; the latter
has a long and narrow grain that keeps its shape well
for curries”
Website : http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/rice--15.html
