Wild rice

Wild rice belongs to the genus Zizania in the Oryzeae tribe of the grass family Poaceae. There are three North American Zizania species: Z. palustris, Z. aquatica L., and Z. texana Hitchcock. Z. palustris is grown commercially for its grain. Zizania latifolia is native to East Asia. Z. latifolia is grown commercially for its stems that swell into galls when infected with the smut fungus Ustilago esculenta. Sometimes the undomesticated species and varieties of the genus Oryza are called “wild rice”.

Quotes

  • WILD RICE
    Wild rice, the seed of a special grass that is of a different species than regular rice, was formerly gathered uniquely by American Indians. Now that it is also being cultivated by growers in various parts of the country, it is more easily available, though never cheap. The pronounced flavor and pleasantly chewy texture of wild rice make it a welcome accompaniment to meats with personality, such as pork, duck, goose, and game, although it also has its role as a contrast to the milder flavors of chicken and game hens.
    • Julia Child, The Way to Cook. 11th printing of 1993 pbk edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2005. p. 330.  (1st hbk edition, 1989; 1st pbk edition, 1993, ISBN 0679747656)
  • Cultivated Northern Wild Rice (NWR; Zizania palustris L.) is a high-value, small commodity crop grown in irrigated paddies, primarily in Minnesota and California. Domestication of the species began ∼60 years ago as demand for the nutritional grain outpaced hand-harvesting efforts from lakes and rivers in the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada. Cultivated NWR cultivars are open-pollinated and highly heterogeneous and have primarily been bred for seed retention, yield, and seed size. As a lowland crop, NWR's life cycle, particularly its unique seed physiology, poses challenges to breeding efforts, limiting selection cycles per year, and requiring annual grow-outs of all germplasm. Recent efforts have increased the genomic resources available to NWR researchers, including a reference genome assembly and methodology optimization for genotyping-by-sequencing technologies. The species’ close phylogenetic relationship with white rice (Oryza sativa) also provides a unique opportunity to utilize comparative genomic approaches to identify genes conferring agronomic traits of interest in NWR, particularly domestication traits such as seed retention. Z. palustris is an enigmatic species with regional ecological, cultural, and agricultural significance in the Great Lakes.
  • The only seasonings that the Ojibway and other Woodlands rice gatherers traditionally used with wild rice were maple sugar, berries, and animal fat—any or all of which might be added during cooking. ... Precontact Indian people had their own way of cooking: deer tallow mixed with bear grease was an effective shortening, and ashes were used in place of soda for baking bread. The absence of salt, a comparatively recent introduction, was often remarked upon in early sources; for example, an explorer at Lake of the Woods in 1857 found rice cooked with blueberries a welcome relief from foods seasoned with salt. Minnesota Ojibway began to acquire a taste for salt only in the mid-nineteenth century.
  • Encyclopedic article on Wild rice on Wikipedia
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