South Carolina - Rice Eaters

When I was a child, the clear channel radio stations broadcast farm prices at noon. I was never sure if farmers were expected to load their animals and head for Chicago if they heard good news. However, as I ate bologna or hot dogs for lunch, I never questioned why the animals would be slaughtered. Without being told, I understood the general supply chain.

When I read about rice growing in South Carolina, I wonder who actually ate the grain. I can’t think of a single popular English or northern European rice dish, except the rice pudding and stuffed green peppers I was fed at summer camp.

Historians have traced in great detail changes in marketing between the planters and the European wholesalers, but only repeat Lewis Gray’s general information that 12% of the rice was exported to Portugal and the rest to England who kept 15% and re-exported the rest to Holland, Hamburg, Bremen, Sweden, and Denmark. The identity of the end users is left to anecdotes.

The Portuguese and Italians had adopted rice in their diets. The first were growing it in Brazil by 1587 and introduced better yielding varieties wherever they had contact in east and west Africa. Italians grew their own, or imported it from elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

In the age of sails, it may be trade itself was the biggest consumer of rice. Judith Carney has noted slave ships bought tons of rice to feed their human cargo. In the 1840's, the British defined minimum provision levels for passenger ships, which would have included those carrying Irish immigrants. Ship masters were ordered to issue to every passenger every week.

"two and a half pounds of bread or biscuit, not inferior in quality to what is usually called navy biscuit, one pound of wheaten flour, five pounds of oatmeal, two pounds of rice, two ounces of tea, half a pound of sugar and half a pound of molasses."

On ships leaving Liverpool, Ireland or Scotland ships masters could substitute oatmeal, and five pounds of potatoes could replace a pound of oatmeal or rice.

There are hints rice was used as an institutional food. Ruth Pike has found slave and convict oarsmen on Spanish galleys in the 1600's were fed moldy biscuits and stews filled with vermin. Later in the century, authorities substituted rice for beans which increased dietary deficiencies: rice and beans need to be eaten together to release the proteins in both.

In 1752 the naval arsenal at Cartagena recommend a daily ration of 24 ounces of biscuit and 7 ounces of beans or chickpeas. In 1777 a third meal was added and the daily ration changed to 24 ounces of biscuit, 11 ounces of beans and 3 ounces of rice. At La Carraca in 1777, men were still fed two meals: beans filled with worms and vermin at noon and a stew of rice and undercooked chickpeas at night.

Leander Stillwell notes Fourreau de Beauregard said Napoléon thought "rice is the best food for the soldier." He used rice in Egypt and stockpiled it when he prepared to invade Russia. During his exile at Elba, Napoléon ordered a brig be furnished with "biscuit, rice, vegetables, cheese, brandy, wine, and water, for 120 men for three months" and that the garrison at nearby Pianosa be given the same rations as sailors: "meat, biscuit, rice, and either brandy or wine."

Fernand Braudel says in France it was used in hospitals, military barracks, and on ships, and that tons were imported from Alexandria to feed the poor in 1694 and 1709. He found the French used rice as an extender to make millet bread, and that Venice mixed it with other flours to make cheap breads for the poor. Lou Edens of Rice Hope Plantation Inn believes the rice sent to northern Europe was eaten by people and livestock "during the winter when peas were scarce and barley was unavailable."

None of these uses would have endeared rice to the poor. Indeed, Stiltwell said rice was issued to his Illinois infantry unit in the civil war, and no one knew how to cook it. "The horrible messes we would make of that defy description. I know that one consequence with me was I contracted such aversion to rice that for many years afterwards, while in civil life I just couldn’t eat it in any form, no matter how temptingly it was prepared."

The upper classes in Amsterdam and London, who had some contact with the East India trade, treated rice as a luxury that didn’t spread to the rising middle classes. That failure left planters prey to a market that could change. Charleston knew demand dropped after the fall of Napoléon. As suggested by the British regulations, the introduction of the potato would easily have displaced it in northern Europe. Steam powered ships that shortened voyages would also have decreased demand.

One reason rice plantations didn’t recover after Reconstruction is that they had lost their market to cheaper rice from southeast Asia. Charleston’s response that they produced a superior grade was futile. Elite taste has always been fickle, and the poor eat what’s cheap.

Notes:
Braudel, Fernand. Les Structures du quotidien: le possible et l’impossible, 1979, translated as The Structures of Everyday Life, vol 1, 1979, translated by Sian Reynolds, 1981.

Carney, Judith. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas, 2001.

Dodge, Theodore Ayrault. Napoleon; A History of the Art of War, volume 1, 1904; on rice in Egypt.

Edens, Lou. "History of Rice in Charleston & Georgetown," Rice Hope Plantation Inn website.

Gray, Lewis C. History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, 1933.

Greene, Robert. The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, on rice for Russian campaign.

Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review. "British Law Regulating the Carriage of Passengers in Merchant Vessels", volume 26, 1852.

Stillwell, Leander. The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865, 1920; I could find no source for the quotation from Beauregard.

Pike, Ruth. Penal Servitude in Early Modern Spain, 1983.

Young, Norwood. Napoleon in Exile: Elba, 1914; on rice on Elba and Pianoso.