Finding a Lost Strain of Rice, and Clues to Slave Cooking
“It’s the most historically significant African diaspora grain in the Western Hemisphere,” said David S. Shields, a professor at the University of South Carolina
and chairman of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, who works with Mr. Dennis on historical culinary projects and was with him that rainy day in Trinidad.
“If we can bring this back,” he said, “the historical back story could deepen the development
of African diaspora food in America and better tell the real story of Southern food.”
At another rice symposium held by the Carolina Rice Foundation in April, Mr. Dennis prepared hill rice for everyone.
Mr. Dennis had heard about hill rice — also known as upland red bearded rice or Moruga Hill rice — through the culinary organization Slow Food USA
and the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, the group that brought back Carolina Gold in the early 2000s.
There is no one as fanatic about Southern heirloom grains as Mr. Roberts, whose South Carolina
company led the revival of Carolina Gold rice and several other Southern heirloom grains.
Dr. Shields, who is part of a global effort to find new ways to grow rice on dry land, began his research, and realized
that the Trinidad hill rice might be linked to the missing American rice, which in turn could be traced all the way back to the West African rice fields.
Last summer, Mr. Wilson invited Mr. Roberts to discuss the rice alongside Michael Twitty, a culinary historian
and the author of ”The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South” at a Smithsonian event.
