Sky-blue lakes lie, sparkling like jewls, in the deep green lush foressts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and the neighboring parts of Canada. Ans after the ice goes out each spring, limp shoots of aquatic grass appear in many of these lakes. By late summer, these grasses stand tall and produce and edible seed.
The American Indians named the edible seed that nature provieded in these lakes, wild rice.
And as early as the first century, A,D; they came to the lakes and the connecting streams that criss-crossed the glacier-sculptured region to the harvest, dry and thresh wild rice, which became the major source of carbohydrate in their diets.
However the wild rice is not a rice at all,but rather the grain like seed of an aquatic grass, zizania aquatica, which the woodland Indians soon called their "Precious wild rice."
By the 1300's and 1400's. these people set up camps along the lake shores late each summer to gather the wild rice.Which often was credited with their survival through the long, cold winters.
Moving to the camps each year became a highlight, almost a ritual in their culture.
But, wild rice was to become the cause of wars in future years.
During the 1700's, the westward migrating Chippewas (or Ojibwas) fought many battles with the Fox, Winnebago and Sioux Indians over the control of the wild rice producing areas.
The Chippewas won and the wild rice became the food to which there good health and large stature was attributed.
But the wild rice crop was not always reliable, reportedly producing good crops only three out of four years. And in the years when wild rice was not plentiful, the Chippewas would often go hungry and sometimes starve during the snowy winters.
Yet, still today , the Chippewas call their wild rice, "precious" However, their cars have made the lake side wild rice camps obsolete. Now they commute from their homes to lakes to harvest the wild rice. Many of the older people feel that their culture and heritage would be stronger if the customs of the wild rice camp was revived.
Had you had the opportunity to observe a wild rice camp in the days past. Or go to museum desplays of a wild rice camp, you would witness a scene much like this:
Temperary birch bark covered housing, usually opened ended because of the weather was still warm, clustered around the drying and threshing operations. Lined up on the lake shore were birched barked canoes, with the long forked poles that were use to propel the canoes through the shawllow waters.
The wild rice was gathered by the Indian woman who used a short stick or pole to hold the tall grass over the canoe while another short pole was used to knock the riped grains off into the bottom of the canoe. The men would pole the canoes through the water.
Long ago it was a custom of some Indian tribes to wrap the wild rice, before the grains ripened, with ropes of straw. Sometimes of the tied wild rice was made to establish territories for harvesting once the grain ripened. This custom also reduced the loss of ripe grain wind, rain or birds.
The harvested rice was laid on woven straw mats to dry several days in the sun and then parched in metal or iron containers set over or near a fire.
the partially filled container was stired often as the heat from the fire dried the grains.
Another method used was setting the grains on a screen over a fire, much like the Indians dried there fruits and sometimes, there meats.
The threshing usually was done by the young men, who treaded with moccasin shod feet on the dried rice, which was in a small, skined lined hole dug into the ground. Two small trees are secured so that he could lean on them as he threshed the rice.
The chaff removed by the threshing was then seperated from the wild rice by what the Indians called winnowing. This was sometimes done by pouring the threshed rice from one birched bark basket into another in light breezes, which would blow chaff from the rice.
Without the breeze, the wild rice was fanned as it was poured to one container to another.
If the breezes were brisk, the threshed was simply laid out on a blanket and the wind would blow away the lighter chaff.
Once the winnowing had separated the chaff from the finished wild rice, it was bagged. Sometimes these bags were wrapped in skins and burried deep in the cool earth for winter, or longer, storage.
The wild rice camp scene, just described, involved the adults in all the stages of wild rice processing and preparing the meals for the groups. The young children would often be at play or be busy gathering wood for the fires.
The chippewas used the wild rice as a cereal with blueberries, stuffed into game birds, or cooked the grain in soups or stews with bear, venison, fish or other game. It was as important to them then as wheat and oats are today to the white man, even though the Indians are likley to rely on super market foods today as are their country men.
The commercialization of wild rice began in the the early 1600's when the voyageurs and fur traders begain to follow the natural eating patterns of the Indians living in the Upper Great Lakes Region. That primarily was a diet of game and fish with wild rice and wild berries.
By the 19th century wild rice was sold to a few homesteaders and some enterprising businessmen even advertised and sold the wild rice around the turn of the century for as much as 40 cents a pound.
Numerous and varied methods of wild rice harvesting, processing and marketing have been tried in the last 50 years. But, because the crop grew wild in nature it was not always reliable. Businessmen went broke as the prices of wild rice fluctuated widely, depending upon the quantity of the harvest.
If water levels were not right, if the stand of the rice was too thick, if the rains and winds came when the grain was ripened, but not yet harvested...All these factors could mean disaster for the wild rice and businessman, just as the same variables had ment hunger or starvation for his Indian predecessors.
Far sighted agricltural experts and wild rice businessman soon realized that the wild rice production would have to be made more consistent before the crop would ever become a viable food for areas outside the midwest United States. The continued dependency on the natural produced wild rice would confine it to either the area in which it was produced, the tables of the rich or for restaurant use.
So during the 1950's, wild rice prouduction in low lying paddies, which were sometimes flooded much like in the production of white rice, was begun.
Equipment was modified to meet the specific needs of growing this temperamental grain. And research was begun to develop strains that would ripen at once and be more resistant to insects and disease.
In the mid 70's almost three-fourths of Minnesota wild rice production, which accounted four about 95% of the total, was produced in the cultivated wild rice patties.
National and international and marketing efforts, plus the extensive uses of wild rice as a gourmet food gift item, and increasing both the awareness and appreciation of the rich, dark, nutritious grain.
And the times have past when the delicacy, wild rice, is over looked on the buffet tables across the country-simply because no one knew what it was.
Wild rice is now the lists of accepted items at customs points all over the world, instead of sometimes being held as an "unknown" suspect item in some places.
And just as Americans have learned that turkey was good all year round, for all occasions, the use of wild rice is expanding behond the traditional stuffings, side dishes and casseroles.
In the 1980's, sales of wild rice are increasing because of the hightened interest in nutrition, health and improved dietary standards.
Nutritional analysis shows that wild rice is low in calories and fat, yet high in fiber and good quality protein. It also has a wide variety of minerals and vitamins.
These nutritional characteristics, combined with the fact and the few wild rice products have any preservatives or additives, make wild rice appealing to a growing number of vegetarians.
On the other hand, wild rice has its own uniqueness as a historical, natural food and as an extraordinary, sophsticated food. It is this special combination that many amateur and professional culinary experts are searching for.
For these same reasons, restaurants and courting their customers with wild rice on the menu more frequently than ever before. Of course, restaurants also like the profitablity resulting from the surprisingly low cost per serving figures of wild rice.
Naturally, wild rice growers, marketers and processors are expanding to meet their widening markets. In Canada, Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia wild rice marketers are becoming more aggressive in the management in harvesting of wild rice crops from their lakes.
In the United States, some wild rice is being grown in patties in Northern Califorina, in lakes in Idaho and in the wet low lands on the east coast. This has spread wild rice production from the Atlantic to Pacific. Marketing and sales of wild rice is being carried out worldwide.
Surely this would please the wild rice enthusiast, A.E. Jenks, who in 1889 wrote, " if wild rice could be cultivated with any certainty it would be as staple for the white population of America as it has been for the many thousands of Indians before them."
This information was taken from the Library Of Congress. Catalog Number 82-227709
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