Prairie Fare: The Universal Language
of Food May Be Rice

The closest I came to eating rice as a kid was when Mom made riced potatoes to accompany her homemade meat gravy. But the boundaries of my meat-and-potatoes world expanded considerably with my introduction to tacos and egg rolls and grew to include Spanish rice and fried rice. Yet, it wasn’t until I bought a rice cookbook years later that I came to appreciate just how universal rice’s appeal really is.

There are as many types of rice as there are ways of preparing rice. I have my favorite rice recipes, many of which come from the cookbooks I’ve accumulated. But my absolute favorite way to prepare rice is the simple way I learned from Mary Leyva, a friend from Phoenix. (I doubt if I’ll ever master Mary’s made-from-scratch tamales or her chili rellenos.)

Mary uses a medium-grain white rice, which she seasons with garlic--a lot of garlic, about two or three cloves (minced) per cup of rice. She also uses about a quarter-cup of fresh chopped cilantro per cup of rice, about 1 tablespoon of ground cumin per cup of rice and salt to taste. To make this rice, add water to a pan in a 3-to-1 ratio to the amount of rice you intend to cook. Then add the rice and seasonings, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes. When you lift the cover, you’ll be greeted by an authentic Southwest style of rice that I’m certain you’ll want to make again.

Serve Mary’s rice with some mesquite-grilled chicken or spicy barbecue ribs, baked pinto beans and cornbread. While you’re eating, stare out the window at a cottonwood or a spruce or an ash or whatever type of tree happens to be growing nearby and imagine it’s a saguaro cactus.

OK, that’s long enough. Back to reality and another sense of place--our place: The recipe that follows features wild rice, a long-grain marsh grass native to Minnesota and other states and provinces in the northern Great Lakes area.

Gingered Rice and Beans
(This recipe comes from "The Bean Cookbook," published by the North Dakota Department of Health.)
Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients:
1 cup (8 ounces) wild rice
3 cups water
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup dry milk powder
1 16-ounce can navy beans
1 package dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup slivered or chopped almonds, toasted

Procedure:
Combine all ingredients in a 2 1/2-quart greased casserole pan and bake covered at 225 F for 1 1/2 hours. (Note: substituting cream for half the water will add calories, but also creaminess.) This dish makes a nice accompaniment for barbecued chicken or pork.

What’s Your Take on This, Julie?

Wild rice was a staple in the diet of Chippewa and Sioux Indians. It was called "mahnomen" or wild berry by Native Americans. Wild rice grows best in cold water of sufficient depth. In Minnesota’s waters, licensed harvesters use traditional methods: a canoe, a pole for power and two sticks to knock the wild rice into the bottom of the boat. Wild rice also is grown on a larger scale in rice paddies and harvested with special combines.

Hometown Midwestern cookbooks are likely to include wild rice casseroles--or "hot dishes" as they’re known regionally--containing mushroom soup and ground beef. Here’s a nutritious recipe with a different twist. A serving of Gingered Rice and Beans contains about 155 calories, 3.5 grams of fat and 3.7 grams of dietary fiber.

As with white rice, it’s important to check for stones before cooking wild rice; wash it well with cold running water, skim the debris, drain and place in a heavy pot. Add one cup rice to three cups boiling water, chicken or beef broth, return the water to a boil and stir. Simmer 45 to 60 minutes or until kernels puff open and the inside lighter part is exposed. It will about triple in volume after cooking.

Overcooking will make the rice mushy. In fact, some prefer slightly undercooked wild rice, which may have a more nut-like flavor. Wild rice is nutritionally more similar to oats, another member of the grass family, than to white rice and is a good source of several B vitamins and potassium. One cup of cooked wild rice contains about 160 calories and less than a gram of fat.

Cereal grains and beans are staples in a vegetarian diet, which can be a little controversial in livestock-producing areas. People choose vegetarianism for a lot of reasons including religion, animal rights, environmental factors and health beliefs. Sometimes teens go through a vegetarian phase as they test their independence, and it becomes very important for them to choose a diet that meets their growth requirements.

It is possible to eat a healthy vegetarian diet, but it takes planning and often some advice from a nutrition professional. Iron and zinc--minerals bountiful in animal products--and vitamin B-12, which is only found in animal products, are some of the nutrients of concern and may require supplementation. Vitamin B-12 is recycled quite efficiently in the body, but among long-term vegetarians a deficiency can cause a type of anemia and sometimes irreversible nerve damage.

Vegetarians who also forego milk products run the risk of calcium deficiency. While calcium is also found in broccoli and kale, it takes a large volume to meet current recommendations.

Protein can also be a cause for concern especially among vegetarians who avoid milk and eggs. Plant proteins are considered incomplete. Rice, for example, lacks the protein building block lysine but is high in another protein building block, methionine, while legumes such as beans contain lysine but lack methionine. Combining the rice and beans at the same meal was believed to be essential, but recent research suggests that the different foods can be eaten over the course of the day.

There are lots of good reasons to eat plenty of foods from the produce aisle. Even though the minority of people are vegetarians, all of us need to strive for at least five servings of fruits and vegetables--that’s three vegetables and two fruits--every day.

###

Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187