The origin of rice: a wonderful story

Rice is a cereal of the family of grasses (or poaceae). The origin of rice is very ancient, since it has been consumed for more than 5000 years. Even today, it is the staple food for almost half of the world's population.

Japanese, Chinese and Thai people eat rice every day. In Madagascar, an average person swallows 130 kilos per year. In comparison, a French person eats around 58 kilos of bread per year.

For the record, the term “rice” refers to both the plant and the famous small white grains that it produces. Unlike rye or wheat, rice has the particularity of not being a flour cereal. This means that, in traditional agriculture, it is not ground and transformed into flour (or very rarely). It is above all a grain cereal, consumed as is (or almost!)

The history of rice is very rich. It is estimated that it has been cultivated by man for over 7000 years. It is in several regions of India and China (Hunan) that we would find the first traces of rice cultivation. The first known writing on the cultivation of rice dates from 2800 BC: it is a Chinese royal ordinance. Rice then spread to Thailand and Korea.

Historically, the genus Oryza is appeared in Eurasia about 50 million years ago (Tertiary era). However, the ancestor of rice would rather have originated in Africa. Seeds traveled primarily through herd migrations and plate tectonics.

We will have to wait for the around the 14th century so that it begins to be mentioned in France in official writings. Its culture did not develop there until the 20th century. 

A little history of rice

• 320 BC: Alexander the Great returns from Persia and introduces rice to Greece.
• 10th century: Arab peoples extend their culture to the eastern African coasts.
• 11th century: it reached North Africa, then Spain and Italy.
• 1393: first mention of rice in France in The Parisian Mesnagier.
• 15th century: Portugal brings it first to Guinea, then to Brazil.
• 1593: King Henry IV orders the cultivation of rice, sugar cane and madder in the Camargue.
• 1696: rice reaches North America, possibly following the sinking of a Malagasy ship.
• 1860: first harvest in the State of California.
• 1960-80: Total rice production in Asia increases by more than 60%.
• 1981: The rice collection kept in the United States reaches 13 varieties.

Myths and legends around rice

This cereal has long remained a determining food resource for the subsistence of many peoples. Among the poorest among them, it has a sacred character. It is therefore quite natural that the origin of rice is surrounded by myths and legends. In East Asia, we even attribute a soul to rice. Traditionally, the rice farmer must prevent it from escaping.

• In Japan, it is said that it was the child of a god (Hō no Ninigi no Mikoto) who brought rice to the people. He would have arrived on earth with a bag of rice given by his grandmother, the goddess of the sun. The latter would have ordered him to grow them all over the world. 

• In Malaysia and Indonesia, several versions say that rice was born from the corpse of a god or a young girl. The semen would have come out of his navel. The other parts of its body would have given rise to ripe fruits, including coconuts.

• In China, the history of rice overlaps with that of the Miao ethnic group. Their hungry ancestors would have sent a green bird to the sky god. The animal would have entered the divine rice granary to bring the precious cereal back to earth.