Species sheet · The Edible River
Paddy rice
Half the world eats what grows with its feet in water.
- Camargue rice pilaf
- Sticky rice steamed in a bamboo basket, Lao style
- Carnaroli risotto, stirred ladle by ladle
- In French
- Riz de rizière
- Scientific name
- Oryza sativa
- In the water
- A grass grown in the flooded paddies of Asia, Africa and the Camargue. The water smothers the weeds while the rice grows.
- Season & buying
- Transplanted in spring, harvested from late summer into autumn; in the Camargue the harvest runs through September and October.
- Common length
- ~100 cm
- How to identify it
- Clumps of green stems standing above the water
Drooping heads loaded with golden-husked grains
Long, narrow leaves, rough at the edges
On the plate
A nourishing, mild grain, firm or sticky depending on the variety, fragrant for jasmine and basmati.
Avoid: Leaving it for hours at room temperature: a soil bacterium makes a toxin in it that heat does not destroy; cool it quickly.
It feeds more than half of humanity, and nearly all of it grows in water: a flooded paddy is a small farmed river.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
