New Orleans is famous for its food. We have dishes that are never duplicated properly in other parts of the country, sometimes due to the variation found in basic ingredients, sometimes because we seem to have something unfathomable about our atmosphere that ensures excellent food. I’ve often heard people say the soul of New Orleans itself permeates everything here, including the food.
Without being able to bottle that and sell it on the international market as the “Essence of New Orleans”, the next step is to examine some of the basic ingredients. One that is often taken for granted is the rice.
The United States is the third largest producer of rice in the world, which still is not a very large proportion as 90% of the world’s rice is produced in Asia. As long as rice has been produced in Louisiana, and the pride all Louisianans share in “home-grown” products, Louisiana was not the first place in the United States to try rice as an agricultural crop. The first place to grow rice was the Carolinas, resulting in 1.5 million tons being produced in the Carolinas by 1710. It was also in the Carolinas that the present method measuring rice by the barrel was codified (162 pounds) and it is still used in Louisiana today to measure rice production. (Source: LSU Ag Center)
In the 1880s, with war behind the nation, rice production began in earnest in Louisiana. However, it was soon obvious that there would be many battles due to disease and pests. As a result, in 1909, a band of rice producers gathered together and helped acquire land to create a central location for testing new varieties and techniques for growing and harvesting this important crop near Crowley, Louisiana. Today, that research is still continuing with LSU’s Agricultural Center program, which produces the rice varieties and tests herbicides & pesticides chosen by the farmers to suit their markets and their fields. LSU’s research is at the cutting edge of rice production of rice in Louisiana.
Today, rice production is also tied closely with the commercial farming of crawfish as well, and both crops feature heavily in New Orleans’ cuisine. The crawfish are raised in the flooded fields where rice was previously grown, and are followed once again by another rice crop. The two agricultural products are once again combined in the many kitchens and restaurants across the city in a long list of dishes unique to our area as we enjoy the bounty the state has to offer, and all because of New Orleans’ roots as the port that led to the world.
What does all of that mean to the cook really? It means that we have unique varieties of rice that are often never mass marketed in any other part of the country, varieties that are uniquely suited to the cuisine and provide much of the foundation for New Orleans’ food, as it was here in New Orleans that rice was processed and shipped out to the rest of the world, allowing local cooks to choose the best for themselves.
Many of these varieties have names that never make it to the supermarket shelf, such as Jupiter, Clearfield, Toro-type, Rexmont and Dixibelle. Instead, we are more familiar with their culinary and brand names such as jasmine, arborio, basmati, long grain, pearl, wild pecan, Creole Rose, Konriko, and Cajun Country. Each cook prefers specific brands for specific dishes, and wants it cooked just so as well. Almost every kitchen sports one (or more!) rice cookers as well.
Basically, New Orleanians use brown rice with its higher nutritional content, and the familiar fluffy, long grain white rice, with occasional ventures into rice for risotto, puddings, and paella for shorter grained rices. Other rices occasionally are chosen as well, such as basmati or jasmine rice for some Asian dishes or wild rice for accompanying game or other hearty dishes.
Rice shows up in jambalaya, etouffee, dirty rice, gumbos of all kinds, with red beans, under creamed potatoes and green beans, in dressings, and just about every plate in the city some time during the day. It’s economical and easy to digest, and it has stretched many meals to feed the mouths gathered around the dinner table in tough economic times.
Today, we have many more rice choices to indulge our desire for variety besides choosing different brands of white rice. Brown rice is a choice many explore first, as it is the closest to white rice in terms of flavor and texture, although it takes twice as long to cook and isn’t as fluffy. Converted rice is steamed before husking, (familiar brand is Uncle Ben’s®) so that it retains most of the nutritional value of the brown rice, but not the fiber. Both of these are well suited to being used with traditional New Orleanian food, adding more nutrition to these dishes without radical changes.
There are also gourmet versions of Louisiana rice that may have been overlooked in the supermarket, or are produced in small quantities requiring purchase directly from the mill or producer. One such variety is Campbell Farm’s Gourmet Popcorn Rice. Locally available at the German Coast Farmer’s Market, it can also be ordered online. I haven’t seen it in any of the local grocery stores as of yet.
I compared this gourmet white long grain rice with a local favorite that is much more widely available, Cajun Country long grain white rice. Visually, there was not much difference, although I thought the grains of popcorn rice were a bit slimmer in profile. I used identical amounts of salt, water, and rice. (Equal amounts of rice & water, just a pinch of salt.) Both of them were cooked in the same rice cooker, and the same “victims” were selected for the blind taste test. The conclusion? It was obvious that the popcorn rice ($4.50 for 2 pounds at the farmers market) was much fluffier and had a larger cooked volume after being cooked. It was less sticky, with more independent grains than the Cajun Country rice.
The testers all preferred the flavor of the popcorn rice as well, and a common comment was that it was “chewier” than the Cajun Country brand. Cajun Country rice tended to be stickier and more inclined to clumping. The general consensus was that the popcorn rice would be better when topped with seafood, fish, or meat dishes, whereas the Cajun Country rice would be fine when it was mixed into gumbo, made into rice pudding, or served with Asian-style foods.
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