This rice, Carolina Gold, is the first American cultivated rice. It appears that a distressed merchant ship put in 1685 at Charleston, South Carolina. To pay for repairs, the merchant gave a quantity of seed rice from Madagascar in payment. It was planted and for more than 200 years, South Carolina was the premier rice growing state. In early 1900, with competition, rice production ended in the Low County.

At times, Corti Brothers has offered this rice, called Carolina Gold, but until recently it was sporadic in availability.. Carolina Gold is Oryza glaberrima rice, that is, an African species of medium to short grain, not often seen, as opposed to what we mostly grow in California which is short grain rice, the Japonica species. Carolina Gold takes its name from the ripe ears of grain which have a brilliant gold color. The milled rice is brilliantly white in color. It has a very smooth texture and mouth feel and a light, inviting scent when cooked. Rice is not looked upon as having a well defined scent or flavor when cooked, but it does have these characteristics. Since rice is not a usual item on the American table, I think, we just look upon it as “that white stuff.” Carolina Gold will probably change your mind on the subject.

Now, enter Charleston Gold. This is a new rice, based on Carolina Gold, but with an aroma. Aromatic rices, like Basmati or Jasmine, have this aroma from a compound called 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline. In some countries, this kind of rice is not well looked upon. Once when I was serving some steamed Basmati rice to a Hong Kong friend at dinner, he refused to eat it saying “It smells like what we recognize as moldy rice in HK.”

Charleston Gold Rice is a new cultivar, work on which started in 1998 was released in 2011. Rice is subject to many changes, where the original rice is improved for production, flavor, its stalk shortness and disease resistance. Even the Italian cultivars Arborio and Carnaroli are modern rice, having been released in 1949 and 1950 respectively. So they are not all that old. What did the Italians use before these cultivars: Originario or Vialone, then Vialone Nano. Could also have been a cultivar now extinct. So much for history!

However, Charleston Gold is now on the scene and is the aromatic version of Carolina Gold. If you like rice in whatever shape or form, these two will show you what the original rice in the US was like and then became. There is one problem. When this rice is sold out, or has a poor crop due to weather, there is no more of it. So getting it now is a word to the wise. The producers recommend storing the unused rice in the freezer to maintain quality.