Category Archives: Starch

Wild Rice

A fistful of wild riceToday Judy showed up with a bag of Canada Goose wild rice from Fort Assiniboine.  Wild “rice” is actually a misnomer: it’s the seed of zizania grasses, which are not part of the rice family, though they are closely related. Anyways, it’s indigenous to lakes across Canada and the northern United States.

The harvesting of wild rice is a pretty interesting affair.  Here’s a video of some hippies in Maine taking a canoe into the rice marsh.

Because of the high moisture content of the grain, wild rice actually goes through a good deal more processing than its true-rice cousins.  After harvest wild rice is left in large, damp piles to mature for about a week, then dried over a … Continue reading.

Homemade Granola

A jar of granolaIn the last few days I have learned a lot about oats. For example: whole oats are called groats. Not impressed? Fine. Here are the main “styles” of processed oats:

  • Rolled oats: steam-rolled flat. I think the most popular style.
  • Steel-cut oats: each groat is cut (by steel, I guess) into a few pieces. Sometimes called Irish oats.
  • Quick Oats: the oats are steel cut and then steam-rolled, even flatter than rolled oats, reducing cooking time (hence the name).

Why have I become a scholar of oats? This week Judy brought us a 20 kg bag of rolled oats and a 20 kg bag of quick oats, both from the Can-Oat mill in Manola, and each costing about $25. While … Continue reading.